The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
by Ninja-Sam
Summary: A Kagaku Ninja Tai mission to stop a mecha over the Atlantic Ocean goes very, very wrong...
1. Part I

**_Author's Note: I take a couple of small liberties with canon in this story. It's set during Gatchaman II, so Joe's a cyborg...but they still have their original vehicles and weapons, and a life outside of G-Town. Apologies to Tatsunoko... :-)_**

**_Standard disclaimer: I adore them, but sadly don't own them. Sigh. _**

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THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

**_PART I_**

He was falling.

Endlessly, terrifyingly, so fast the icy wind shrieked in his ears and tore at his birdstyle like a thousand daggers of glass. Wings in shreds, whipping out behind him in useless ribbons the color of blood on snow.

Deafened by the wind, staring down hypnotized at the hard green glass of the ocean, coming at him with the speed of a runaway train. Ashamed of the stark blind terror curling in his gut, turning his bones to liquid, the taste of fear like metal in his mouth. Ashamed that he was afraid to die, glad he was alone to know it.

_Five hundred feet. Four hundred._ Waves dazzling his streaming eyes, shattering the sunlight into a glittering kaleidoscope of colors.

_Three hundred._ Always knew one day his luck would run out. Didn't know it was going to be like this, ten miles straight down to see it coming and wonder.

It wasn't going to be a pretty death.

_Two hundred. One hundred. Seventy five._

Ken Washio squeezed his eyes shut.

_"Don't be a sissy, boy. Washios don't cry."_

_Wait a minute...what...?_

The ocean smashed into him, smacking his breath away. Gasping in distress, swallowing water, _how am I still alive, I should be dead, I should be..._ Hands catching hold of him, huge hands, familiar hands...sweeping him back into the air. This couldn't be happening, it couldn't be, but somehow he was four years old again, swinging up high above his father's head, the clear water of Hontwahl Lake streaming off his body. One quick, dizzy glimpse of Kentaro Washio's face, the sound of his booming laughter, then the long hard plunge back down into the lake.

He struggled as he went under, terrified, lungs screaming for air, and then the laughter above him changed abruptly and his blood ran cold from more than just fear of drowning. It wasn't his father above him any more, it was Berg Katse, roaring maniacally as he pushed Ken deeper, further and further down. The water closed in on him like a tomb, dark and cold and green, the surface light receding to a tiny pinpoint above him, until he couldn't see or hear or feel anything at all anymore...

"Ken! Ken! _Baka,_ wake up!"

_What the hell...?_ Panicking, badly disoriented, gasping for air, Ken struck out toward the sound.

Then something caught his upper arms in a powerful grip, holding him down, _pushing him down..._ He twisted frantically, fighting hard.

_"Kuso,_ Ken! Stop it, it's me!"

His eyes flew open. He was startled to find the hard granite blue of his gunner's stare right above him, only inches away.

"Joe..." he managed to croak out.

Joe Asakura's dark brows drew together in a frown, but there was a twinkle in his eye that he couldn't quite hide. "You done screaming like a girl now? I've got a reputation to maintain."

Ken tried to shrug off his second's restraining hands, calling Joe's ancestry into serious question under his breath. As his surroundings came into focus, he realized he was lying on the floor beside the bed in Joe's trailer – the Sicilian had obviously leaned over and down from the bed to grab hold of him and wake him from his nightmare.

Joe let him go, still smirking a little, and rolled back on to his bed. He propped himself on one elbow, pushing errant strands of burnt caramel hair out of his eyes. "They're gonna catch you one day, you know."

"Who?"

"All those women you keep running away from. Even _I_ can't protect you from everything, Ken."

Ken grabbed the edge of his pillow and flung it hard at his second. Joe dodged it swiftly, laughing. "Pillowrang!"

Ken ignored him, sitting up slowly. He concentrated on his breathing, aware that his shirt was plastered to his back with icy sweat. His mind was still filled with fragments of the nightmare, making him feel weirdly disoriented, even in a place as familiar as the trailer.

The trailer. "How did I get...?"

Joe snorted, getting to his feet and stepping over Ken, heading for the tiny kitchen. "Remember last night? Any of it?"

Ken ran his hand through his thick dark brown hair, brushing back the tendrils stuck damply to his temples. He felt like hell, but he knew that wasn't totally from the bad dream. "This doesn't involve any girlish screaming, does it?" he asked warily.

Joe laughed out loud. "It would have, if you hadn't passed out demonstrating that forward somersault in the Fuji Lounge. I'm telling you, you had that Linda girl right here." He jabbed two fingers of one hand into the open palm of the other for emphasis.

"Laura," Ken said, frowning. "I think..."

"Naah, Laura was the redhead with the...no, wait, that was Micki..."

"Micki was the one with the boyfriend."

"Uh-uh...are you sure?"

Ken nodded, rubbing his pounding temples. "Trust me." He belatedly caught the rest of Joe's original sentence. "Forward somersault?"

"Off the bar," Joe said solemnly. "I could have sold tickets."

Ken dropped his face into his hands. "Aspirin," he groaned quietly. "Give me aspirin."

"Lightweight." Joe tossed him a bottle from one of the overhead cabinets.

"Alcohol's not a food group, Joe."

Joe pretended to ignore him, setting up the coffee to brew. To the Sicilian there was something comforting about the fact that after all these years, he and Ken were still flinging mud at each other just the way they had when they were eight. Only the words had changed.

Preparing to rejoin the battle, he found himself raising his eyebrows instead at the blistering string of insults Ken had begun to mutter under his breath. He glanced over his shoulder, ready to protest such unearned vehemence so early in the game – and his mouth twitched with amusement as he realized he wasn't the target of Ken's verbal abuse. He watched, trying very hard not to laugh, as the leader of the deadliest fighting force on the planet struggled – and failed – to open a childproof cap.

"Want some help?"

Ken turned a look on him that could have burned paint off the wall.

Biting his lip to keep the laughter in, Joe swung back toward the refrigerator. Time to bring out the big guns – knowing his opponent so well gave him a distinct advantage. "How about breakfast?" he asked innocently. "I know how you like those really runny eggs... Oh, and I've got some sausage that hasn't gone bad all the way through yet...might be a bit greasy on that stomach, though..."

He heard Ken's blue streak pause in midstream. A moment later the bathroom door slammed. Joe grinned without turning around. "Just bacon, then?"

He only winced a little as the unpleasant sounds of his handiwork reached him through the thin bathroom walls.

* * *

As it turned out, nobody got eggs. 

Ken answered the bird scramble for both of them as Joe grabbed coffee, and then they raced out the door. Still clutching the bottle of aspirin, Ken piled into the passenger seat of the Nissan, saying a silent prayer of thanks that the G1 was safely docked in her berth in the tail section of the _God Phoenix_ after completing a maintenance run just the night before.

_"Bird go!"_ The double shout echoed back from the empty cliffs, the Skyline's alter ego roaring away from the trailer as the brilliant light of transmutation faded. Despite the insane speed Joe always drove at, the fresh ocean air felt good on Ken's face. He leaned his head back to let it flow up under his helmet visor, closing his eyes as they reached the end of the feeder road and turned south on the coast highway.

His bracelet chirped and he raised his left wrist. "G1."

"G1, this is G5." Ryu's voice crackled over the tiny mike. "I've got G3 and G4 on board and am heading for your location. ETA three minutes."

"Roger." Ken signed off, glancing over at his second as Joe flipped open his coffee mug and drained half the contents in one swallow.

_Berg Katse's masked face, receding up through the darkening green water, laughing..._

"You all right?" Joe asked.

Ken jumped, realized he was staring – and he didn't know how long he'd been doing it. The line of cold sweat was back across his shoulders.

He looked quickly away, out over the ocean. "Katse," he murmured, mind still on the dream.

He'd meant it only for his own ears – but he'd forgotten about Joe's cybernetically enhanced hearing. The gunner gave him a strange look. _"Baka,"_ he said. "Katse's dead."

"Yeah." Ken's head was pounding. He remembered the aspirin bottle and began to struggle with it again.

Joe swore under his breath, grabbed the bottle from him and twisted the cap off with one hand. "Push down first, then turn. Don't you read directions?"

Ken glanced at him, eyebrows going up in surprise. "You _do?"_

Joe snorted. Ken turned away, gazing out over the ocean again, scanning the sky for signs of the _God Phoenix._ He spotted her almost immediately, northwest of their position, closing in fast. "G5, G2 is ready for pickup."

"Roger that, G1. Stand by."

The other drivers had seen the _Phoenix_ too, now, and were starting to recognize the sleek blue form of the G2 and its famous occupants, the Eagle and the Condor. They honked their horns, shouting encouragement and waving thumbs up. Ken couldn't help a grin. A little honest feedback like this, untainted by the ulterior motivations of PR, meant more to him than a hundred formal decoration-for-brave-deed-of-the-week state functions where platitudes were handed out by the bucketful and everyone knew exactly where the cameras were. _Put that in your opinion poll and shove it, President Anderson,_ he thought.

The _Phoenix_ came in lower and lower, blotting out the sun as she loomed in the G2's rear view mirror. The other vehicles began to scatter to the highway shoulders as they heard the familiar sound of her warning klaxon. After several frustrating pickup attempts that had caused near accidents on the road, it was now a law that the _God Phoenix_ had to be treated like any other emergency vehicle – all drivers were required to yield immediately to her siren.

Ken wondered how the traffic ticket would read for a violation of _that_ law. Obstructing the saving of the world – two hundred and fifty bucks? The corners of his mouth twitching, he watched as the warship's nose opened up and the grab bars began to extend.

"Hold it," Joe said suddenly.

"Joe!" Ken yelled in protest as the Sicilian whipped the wheel hard over. The G2 shot diagonally across oncoming traffic, knocking ten years off the life of two unfortunate motorists in the northbound lane. Over the angry raised voices and screeching of brakes, Ken could hear Ryu swearing over the comlink as the _God Phoenix_ thundered past empty handed. "G2, what the hell are you doing?"

"Don't get your _ki_ in a wad, Ryu. We'll be right back." Joe braked hard, swinging the G2 neatly into position in the entrance to...

Ken's mouth dropped in disbelief. A McDonald's drive-thru. Joe was taking them through a McDonald's drive-thru. In the G2. In birdstyle.

Joe caught the dumbfounded stare. "It's ten twenty five," he said, as if that explained everything. "We can still get breakfast."

_Oh, God,_ Ken thought. _Nambu Hakase's going to have a whole herd of cows._

* * *

They were still arguing about it as they came up the lift tube to the bridge of the _Phoenix._ "Joe," Ken fumed, "You are in _so_ much trouble." 

"You're gonna court martial me for being hungry? It's not my fault all there is to eat on the _Phoenix_ is MREs.

"Joe..."

"He's right, Ken," Ryu put in as they appeared on the bridge and he caught the tail end of their conversation.

"About what?" Ken was getting exasperated.

"About the MREs. You've gotta be desperate to eat those, Ken. Really desperate."

_"Ryu..."_

"Didn't you pay attention during all those lectures about armies and empty stomachs?" Ryu turned, saw the paper sacks he and Joe were carrying. "Oooh, breakfast."

"McDonalds!" Jinpei came running out of the rear corridor, pulling down one of Ken's bags before the Eagle could stop him. "Thanks, Joe."

Ken fixed Joe with a stare. Joe shrugged and took a big bite out of an Egg McMuffin.

The comline beeped. "Hakase!" Ryu warned. Joe moved like lightning, whipping sideways to his console. He somehow managed to wind up seated innocently in his chair with time to spare, his wings completely concealing the bags from view.

Ken wasn't so lucky. When Nambu's face appeared on the vidscreen a split second later, he was treated to the incongruous sight of Gatchaman standing by the lift tube like a deer in headlights, in full birdstyle, clutching a bag of breakfast sandwiches to his chest. Nambu's eyebrows went up. "Taking on another part time job, G1?"

Ken's stomach sank.

Jun came up behind him, reaching out to brush the front of his birdstyle with a graceful flick of her wrist. "Crumbs," she explained with a deadpan expression, and walked on past him to her seat.

* * *

For once, the entire Science Ninja Team watched in silence, completely lost for words as the mecha slowly filled the _Phoenix_'s forward screens. "Well," Ryu said at last, "I guess my dad was right. When you're the biggest sonofabitch in the entire valley, it doesn't matter if you're ugly as sin." 

"Ryu!" Jun said with mock severity, cuffing him above his ear. Valiantly suppressing his own laughter, Ken almost lost it when he heard Joe's strangled snort from behind him.

"Looks like they started to build one thing and changed their minds in the middle," Jinpei said.

"Yeah, or maybe they had a front end here and a back end somewhere else, and somebody said, you _know..."_

"Why all those long squiggly things?"

"You got me. Maybe they had a closet full of 'em left over from the last sale."

Ken sat in a self imposed cone of silence, letting the banter and laughter flow around him as he concentrated on the approaching mech. It was massive all right, easily the biggest he'd ever seen by some margin, the size of a small floating city. And it was truly ugly – these things usually resembled some kind of bird, animal, insect or mythological beast, but he was at a complete loss to come up with an earthbound equivalent to this one. If there were creatures that looked like this where Sosai X came from, he didn't ever want to meet one.

A smile quirked at his mouth as he pictured himself sitting at his desk after they'd destroyed it, chewing the end off his lightpen as he tried over and over again to figure out how to write down what this thing actually looked like. "Gruesome hunk of junk" just wasn't going to cut it on an official report, no matter how accurate a description it was.

"Ryu," he said, "Take us once around the park. Don't get too close."

"Tell that to them," Ryu said pointedly, nodding at the squadrons of UN fighters that were fruitlessly engaging the mecha.

Ken glanced up at Joe, standing behind his chair. He could feel the tension radiating off his second as they watched the UN jets playing a self-destructive game of chicken with the huge metal beast. It had been five years since this whole thing had begun, three of them spent in almost continuous warfare, and they still couldn't suppress that sick, helpless feeling when they saw their own side mown down in such a cold, efficient, effortless way. The UN pilots were giving it their all, but they were having about as much effect as a cloud of gnats dive-bombing a lethally armed elephant.

But he couldn't think about that now – he had a job to do if he was going to prevent still more of them dying. Ken forced himself to focus, studying the way the mecha moved, letting it reveal its weaknesses. Its long, blocky body seemed to be composed of roughly triangular scales, making it look like a great bloated pineapple with swollen hips, supported on six gargantuan columns. At one end, a long, dinosaur-like tail whipped back and forth, ending in a massive, spiked club the size of the entire ISO complex in Utoland City. It occurred to Ken as he watched that the sheer power it took to keep this behemoth in the air for five minutes would have kept the lights on in that town for months. And yet it gave off no discernible radiation.

Galactor technology, infused as it was with the twisted genius of a civilization far in advance of their own, was something they still tried desperately to combat, let alone equal. One day, Ken knew, Nambu hoped to turn the knowledge he gained from these beasts of doom and destruction and use it to make the world a better place. What was left of it.

_Katse's mask, distorted through the waves, that voice laughing maniacally as he pushed him down...down..._

_Not now, not now!_ Ken blinked away the image, squaring his shoulders against the line of cold sweat that had broken out across them. The damned nightmare was hanging on with the tenacity of a drug flashback, but he had no time to worry about it right now. Probably had something to do with all the alcohol he had consumed the previous night. _"Harmless fruit drink my ass,"_ he muttered under his breath, flicking a baleful glance at Joe's reflection in the cockpit shields.

He stared determinedly back at the mecha. If the back end loosely resembled a dinosaur, the front end of it was an octopus – twelve spherical heads, each mounted at the end of a long, flexible, snake-like neck. As the monster sailed blithely forward through the attacking squadrons of jets, now and again one or more of the heads would suddenly whip into motion – seemingly able to articulate freely in any direction, slamming out bolt after bolt of bright energy to knock the fighters out of the air. Ken watched the pattern, letting himself become absorbed in the mechanical dance, the way the mecha heads moved.

He felt Joe's curious eyes on him as he abruptly leaned forward, frowning. "Jun, run a scan and tell me where the command center is."

Jun's hands flew over her console. After a moment her frown was deeper than Ken's own. "Scan is negative."

"Backups?"

"Also negative. Either they're jamming our sensors or they've got new shielding we can't penetrate."

"Ken?" There was an edge of impatience in Joe's question.

"Watch the response pattern. Tell me what you see."

It only took him a moment. "They're moving independently."

Ken nodded tightly. He reached over and hit the com switch.

Nambu's face on the vidscreen looked drawn and pinched, as if he hadn't been slept for at least a couple of nights. Knowing the workaholic tendencies of his boss, Ken could believe it. "Hakase, we've got a problem here. Have you seen this thing up close?"

Nambu nodded. "We've been monitoring the satellite feed for an hour now."

"There are twelve heads, any one of which could be the command center...but all of them are operating independently. I've seen five attack at the same time, in completely different directions."

He almost smiled at the spark of interest in Nambu's tired eyes. "Are you sure?"

"Feeding it to you now," Jun said from behind Ken, anticipating her commander's request.

There was a moment while Nambu watched the uplink monitor. "Ken, this is amazing. Send me the data feed. I have to know how they're doing this! The applications..."

"Nothing would make me happier – but the mecha's blocking our sensors. We don't know how, yet."

"Then you'll have to do it from on board," Nambu insisted. "You know how important something like this could be for us, Ken. Learning how to build and use their technology is the only way we're ever going to beat them."

From the corner of his eye Ken saw a piece of that unfathomable technology tighten on the back of his chair – Joe's cybernetic fist. Funny, he'd heard that mantra of Nambu's for years, but all of a sudden it had a much more insidious, personal meaning.

He could imagine all too well what his gunner was thinking right now, but he didn't dare turn round to look at him. This was the very worst moment he could possibly choose to draw attention to Joe, and he knew it.

"Ken," Nambu was saying, "You don't have any time to waste. At its present rate of speed, the mecha will reach its target in less than one hour."

"Roger," Ken said quietly, signing off. If it didn't change its current course, the mecha was headed straight for one of the most populated cities in the world, New Jork.

"Ken," Jun protested, "We don't have time to search twelve heads for the command center, and we can't find it from outside without our sensors!"

Ken stood up, staring down the mechanical monster resolutely. "Then we'll locate it from the inside," he said. "Find me a way to get on board that thing."

* * *

"ISO warship _Phoenix_ calling UN squadron Bravo Delta Seven Niner, over." 

Ken listened as Ryu hailed the UN fighter squadron. The _Phoenix_ sped down the side of the mecha's body, preparing to bank right to clear the immense length of the metal beast's tail.

_"Phoenix,_ Seven Niner reading you five by, go ahead, over."

Ken recognized the voice. This was good news – the UN fighters were being commanded by a man he had flown alongside before. He keyed his com mike. "Captain, you remember the last time we met?"

"Sure do, Commander." There was obvious relish in the UN pilot's response. Attacking Galactor mechas was a brutal, often suicidal job – but when you flew with the _Phoenix,_ the payoff made it all worthwhile. The arrival of the ISO's most famous warship on the scene usually meant one thing...victory.

Ken watched the tail of the mecha begin to respond to their presence, slowly lifting up above the level of its back and swiveling in their direction. "Then you know what I'm going to ask you to do."

There wasn't a second's hesitation. "Roger, Commander. Seven Niner is at your disposal. We will deploy on your signal."

Ken braced himself as Ryu banked hard, standing the _Phoenix_ on her left wing. Above them the tail of the mecha gathered itself like a rattlesnake poised to strike. "Thank you, Captain. Good luck."

"Same to you and your team, Commander."

"Roger. _Phoenix_ out."

"Hold on," Ryu warned sharply. The _Phoenix_ scythed sideways in a stomach-lurching diagonal slip, taking cover under the body of the mecha just in time. The vast spiked club at the end of its tail hurtled down in a heart stopping arc, smashing through the airspace where the warship had been. The _Phoenix's_ wings rocked sharply with the shockwave of its passing.

"Well," Joe said drily, "I think they know we're here."

Ken glanced around at his team. "Then we won't disappoint them," he said.

He felt uncharacteristically tense as he rode up in the lift tube with Joe, Jun and Jinpei. The roof hatch irised open and they were boosted clear of the fuselage, protected only by the _Phoenix_'s clear top bubble. From fifty three thousand feet up, the view of the ocean below was breathtaking, hardly a cloud in sight to mar the endless stretch of glittering sun-kissed blue.

Ken stared down at the waves as the warship wheeled about, arcing up to skim along the back of the mecha. Their target was a lone hatchway embedded in the deck plating just behind the sprouting of the first massive neck.

Three UN fighters roared overhead, preparing to engage the tail section to cover the Science Ninja Team's ingress. The team pressed a code on their bracelets that caused narrow breathing tubes to extend down from the insides of their helmets. Not much oxygen this high up.

"Stand by," Ryu's voice crackled in their headphones. "On five, counting down."

_Falling...wind shrieking past his ears...wings whipping out behind him in useless shreds of red and white..._

Ken couldn't take his eyes off the ocean, ten miles straight down.

"Five...four..."

"Ken!" Joe's voice was sharp in his ears. He jerked, head coming up to meet his gunner's hard, searching stare.

"Three..."

Ken looked away, fumbling obsessively at his wings with his gloved hands.

"Two...one!"

The team gripped each other's hands in a four pointed star. The bubble split in two and folded back, and for a moment all there was, was the howling of the wind. Then the _Phoenix_ slipped sideways from underneath them as they sprang into midair.

Wings snapped out straight from their shoulders as they spun like a white, blue and gold pinwheel, spiraling down with knife-edge precision to land on the mecha's back just short of the target. The _Phoenix_ was already above them, climbing in a wide arc, laying a thick cloud of cover smoke between them and the mecha's surveillance cameras. Ken watched Ryu play a skilful dodging game among the mecha heads, drawing their attention away, knowing they couldn't shoot if they risked hitting each other.

Jun planted charges along the lip of the hatchway, nodded and motioned them back out of range. They dug in tight against the broad metal scales and waited, wings wrapped around each other in layers of protection.

The compact, powerful explosion sent hard tremors through the deck plating under their feet. Joe was the first back to the site, checking the gaping hole now left in the mecha where the hatch used to be. He drew his cable gun and leaned down into the fuselage cautiously.

A moment later he was waving them forward. Jun and Jinpei responded, springing down gracefully into the interior of the mech. Joe glanced up, looking for his commander.

Ken was standing up on the back of the beast, staring at the ocean. He jumped as Joe grabbed his arm. "What the hell is wrong with you?" the Sicilian hissed.

"Nothing. Let's get moving." Ken whirled around in a flash of white wings and disappeared into the mecha after Jun and Jinpei.

Joe frowned, but all he could do was turn and follow.

* * *

The interior layout of the mecha was like nothing they had ever encountered before – a vast tangle of tunnel-like corridors, snaking out in all directions like a heap of discarded spaghetti. Ken swore under his breath, realizing that they would very quickly become unable to find their way out again if they didn't leave a homer behind at the ingress point. Unfortunately, if they could find it, it doubled the chances of the Galactors finding it, too. 

_Damned if you do..._ He gave Jinpei a tight nod and the Swallow pulled a microminiaturized homing device from his pack, concealing it under the torn lip of the entry hole. They finished the job by stretching a layer of specially developed camouflaging film over the hole, smoothing down the edges swiftly. It wasn't perfect, but its reflective effect helped fool the casual eye, hiding the damage from all but close quarter inspection.

That done, Ken glanced over at Jun, crouched down at the other side of the corridor. She was staring intently at the display on her wafer thin, calculator-sized scanning unit. Feeling her commander's eyes on her, she slowly shook her head. "I can't get a clear reading on anything further than a hundred yards. Look at all this ghosting."

Ken stepped across the corridor and crouched down behind her, watching the display as it shimmered and sparked, images doubling and tripling on themselves. "Can you clear the signal?"

Jun shook her head, teeth set in her lower lip. "Nothing works. Whatever they're using, it's blocking us completely."

Ken straightened up. That uncharacteristic tension was back in his muscles...or maybe it had never really left. "Okay, we'll have to do this the hard way. We have two jobs here – find the control center and download the data Hakase needs, and blow this hunk of junk into the next life. Jinpei and I are team one, Jun, Joe, you're team two. Any questions?"

Silence. "All right, then. No communication unless absolutely necessary. Let's go!"

The Science Ninja Team whipped up their arms to their chests in a silent salute, then broke away at a dead run down the corridor.

* * *

Ken and Jinpei found the bottom of the first mecha neck after fifteen minutes of solid running and hiding from passing green-garbed enemy troops. _"Shimatta,"_ Ken swore under his breath. "It's a turbo shaft." 

"One way up, one way down." Jinpei ran up to it as Ken circled protectively. The Swallow checked the tube over carefully. "No emergency exit. If something goes wrong up there and this isn't working..."

His expression told the rest. Ken nodded – he'd feared as much. "No choice, then," he said softly, meeting Jinpei's eyes. "You know there's no way they won't see us coming."

Jinpei grinned. "Don't sweat it, _aniki._ I'll protect you."

Ken resisted the urge to noogie the kid's helmet. He reached out with one blue gloved hand and called the turbolift.

They heard the booted footsteps approaching a split second later. Jinpei's eyes went wide with alarm. There was nowhere to go, no place to hide.

Ken jabbed uselessly at the lift button again, knowing it wouldn't help, but unable to help himself. The footsteps were rapidly coming closer...six men at least, judging from the sound.

He glanced over his shoulder. Still no elevator.

The shadows of the leading Galactor guards began to fall across the opening of the intersecting corridor. Ken instinctively stepped in front of Jinpei, gathering himself to fight.

He almost yelped in surprise as he felt himself yanked back by his wings. He swiveled, coming up on the balls of his feet, ready to strike – and saw Jinpei jumping inside the opening turbolift doors.

Ken dived headlong through them after him, tucking and rolling as he hit the floor inside the lift. Jinpei had the doors closing again already, and Ken held his breath.

The doors thunked shut. Jinpei grinned, giving a pleased thumbs up. The guards hadn't seen them.

Ken let his head fall forward for a minute as the turbolift rocketed upward, exhaling in relief. Six or more guards weren't even a hiccup in his plans – he could have dispatched them by himself almost without breaking a sweat. His fear had been that one of them would raise the alarm before he could prevent it. And with the turbolifts locked off and the mecha alerted to the Kagaku Ninja Tai's presence inside, completing their mission successfully would have rapidly become very difficult indeed.

At least this way they had bought a few more minutes.

He wondered how Joe and Jun were doing. He hoped they hadn't gotten lost.

* * *

"Shit," Joe hissed for the seventh time. "We're lost." 

Jun rolled her eyes. "What is that, your new mantra?" she asked.

Joe glared at her. His eyes fell on the wall behind her and he marched forward, slapping his hand against it. "Hah, see?"

"Uh huh. It's a wall." Jun folded her arms.

"Not just any wall. See this mark? This is a wall we've been past three times in the last ten minutes."

"Joe, that's a scuff mark. They're all over the place. And how can we be going round in circles when we're going downhill all the time? What do you think this is, a spiral staircase?"

How do you know we're going downhill all the time?" he demanded.

She sighed, fishing inside her pouch and taking out a small charge the size of a marble. She placed it on the floor and it slowly began to roll forward, picking up speed. _"Voila."_

Joe's eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth to respond, but then his head suddenly jerked up and around. Jun recognized the momentarily blank look in his eyes – he was listening to something she couldn't hear. Then he was waving her backwards. She scooped up the charge from the floor and raced with him to the last intersection they had passed, flattening beside him against the wall.

She heard it a moment later – Galactor troopers approaching. _Three, maybe four?_ She signed to Joe.

He nodded. The footsteps grew closer. Jun could feel the tension ramp up in the Condor's body. _Stay here,_ he signed to her.

She frowned.

He was gone in a blur of motion, swinging into the corridor, shuriken flying before the guards ever saw what was coming at them. A vicious spinning back kick took out the first guard, his neck broken instantly. Joe's hands clamped down hard on the rifle barrel that scythed toward him, hauling the second Galactor completely off his feet and flinging him like a rag doll into the side of the corridor. He spun back with dizzying speed...but the other two were already dead, the feathered instruments of their demise jutting from their bloodstreaked necks.

When Jun stepped up a moment later, he was hauling the one he had thrown against the wall – the only one left alive – to his feet. She wrinkled her nose, realizing that the man was so terrified at being this close to the living legend of the Condor that he had literally peed his pants.

Joe smiled his best crocodile smile, pinning the Galactor against the wall. "Now you're going to take us on a little guided tour, okay?"

The man nodded quickly, eyes huge in his dead white face.

Joe patted his shoulder encouragingly. "That's good. Now where's the power plant for this big hunk of ugly?"

Jun grinned as they moved off down the corridor. "Real men _do_ ask for directions, huh?"

Joe rolled his eyes.

* * *

The turbolift sighed to a halt. The Eagle and the Swallow glanced at each other. Ken nodded tightly. Jinpei squared his shoulders. 

The doors began to open.

Used to the sound of the turbolift, the twenty or so Galactors in the room beyond didn't react unduly when they heard it arrive. One of the rearmost guards did glance down, puzzled, as he heard the sound of something rolling across the metal deck plating.

_"Grenade!"_

Green suited bodies scattered in all directions as the explosion flared hot and bright, shockwaves throwing them to the ground. Before the smoke cleared, the Eagle and the Swallow were among them.

It was a short skirmish. Ken mowed through the enemy like a hot knife through butter, a one man invasion force too fast for them to evade, too powerful for them to stop. As they had prearranged in the turbolift, Jinpei left the fighting to his commander, heading for the semi-circular console near the forward viewscreen. He scanned the instruments quickly, frowned. Glanced over his shoulder at Ken.

The Eagle had reduced the field to two opponents by now, the ones that the grenade didn't kill falling swift victims to the deadly precision of hands and feet. He kicked the second to last in the chest, hearing ribs splinter from the sheer force of the blow. The man hung there for a moment, gasping his last, then crumpled slowly to the deck. Ken hardly even looked to see the location of the last Galactor. His hand shot backward in a vicious scything chop that connected with fatal accuracy, crushing the man's throat like an eggshell.

His eyes searched past the Galactor's swaying form for Jinpei. The Swallow shook his head.

_One down._

* * *

Joe and Jun crouched in the shadows on the high catwalk, surveying the vast power plant that stretched out below them as far as they could see in either direction. There was minimal activity around the machinery, which meant the alarm had obviously not been raised yet. Both of them silently hoped that boded well for Ken and Jinpei's progress. 

_Thirty minutes,_ Jun signed.

Joe nodded. _We'd better get moving._

Jun pulled charges from her pouch and handed them to him, indicating with quick jabs of her white gloved hand where she wanted him to place them. They stood up together close to the railing, waiting for the optimum moment. Then Jun flashed a smile that said _good luck, be careful,_ and _don't screw up_ all at once, swung her body into a precise gymnast's handstand on the top railing and then released her grip, tumbling into the air. Joe grinned, drawing his gun to cover her, watching her wings spread as she sailed in a tight, achingly graceful spiral toward the lower deck. Only when she was safely down and flitting like a pale ghost into the shadows did he holster his weapon again and vault over the rails to join her.

* * *

Number three, for once, turned out to be the charm. 

As the turbolift doors hissed open, both Ken and Jinpei could see instantly that the interior of this mecha head had several major differences to the last two they had invaded. Not the least of which was the presence of a tall, blonde, purple suited figure at the center console, her back to him.

_Gel Sadra._

Ken's grin was more like a tiger baring its teeth.

He threw a flurry of signaled commands to Jinpei, and then the guards at the rear of the group were turning as the grenades rolled. _"Gatchaman!"_ one of them shouted, and Gel Sadra whirled toward them, golden hair flying.

A hail of machine gun fire carved chunks from the turbolift doors and the walls on either side, but the Eagle and the Swallow were already in the air. They sailed in opposite directions, too fast to follow, splitting the target. The grenades exploded in a roar of light and flying shrapnel, and for a while no one could see anything through the smoke and the tangle of falling men. White leathers spattered crimson with Galactor blood, Ken heaved green suited bodies aside, carving a path through the enemy toward Gel Sadra.

She shouted something, pointing imperiously with one long white gloved hand. Ten Galactor soldiers, probably her personal guard from their size and speed, swung en masse toward the Eagle. Ken cursed under his breath, trying to keep an eye on her as he launched himself at his attackers.

Jinpei fought his way through to the console, ducking flying body parts as the grenades went off behind him. Doing his best to shut out the struggle and concentrate, he pulled electronic equipment from his pack and swiftly scanned the control panels. The console had been splattered with blood and damaged by gunfire, and there were blackened areas from small wiring fires, but the particular components he needed seemed to still be functional. In seconds he was all plugged up and ready to begin downloading data. He reached down to hit the start button...and was hauled backwards into the air by the scruff of his neck.

"Oh, no you don't, you little thief," Gel Sadra said, closing the fingers of one hand around the Swallow's throat.

Ken had killed five of the ten Galactor guards when he heard Jinpei's surprised yelp. Rage crossed his face as he saw Gel Sadra lift the Swallow up off the ground. He whipped out the birdrang, snapping the blades open. "Gel Sadra!" he shouted, and the steel flashed as it hurtled like a heat seeking missile toward its target.

Just at that moment a Galactor soldier picked himself up off the floor right in front of his leader. The birdrang sliced cleanly through his neck, the man standing there for a moment with a surprised expression on his face, as if he hadn't quite realized what had happened. Then his body toppled forward to the floor, the head rolling clear, arterial blood pumping into the sticky dark mass already spreading across the deck plating.

Ken cursed, catching the birdrang on its return. The soldier's unfortunate timing – both for himself and for Ken – had deflected the deadly weapon's aim just enough for it to miss Gel Sadra completely.

Gel Sadra. _Where the hell...?_

Jinpei was on the floor, struggling to get back up, but the Galactor leader was nowhere in sight. Ken whirled around, just in time to see her purple suited figure disappearing into the turbolift. He would never reach it in time.

Yelling in rage and frustration, he whipped the birdrang after her with such force it embedded itself three inches into the steel of the closing turbolift door. He swore he heard her laughing at him as the lift shot downward.

She had taken the guards with her. He and Jinpei were left alone in the command center.

It didn't matter, because they were trapped. _One way up, one way down._

Ken fought off the sick feeling of failure. The game wasn't over yet. He still had an ace in the hole...or rather, the power plant.

He ran to Jinpei, who was up on his feet now, shaking his head a little. "Are you all right?"

Jinpei nodded. "I'm okay."

Concerned at the slightly glazed look in the boy's eyes, Ken frowned. "Sure?" _You'll pay for those bruises on his neck, Gel Sadra,_ he promised to himself. _I'll make you pay for every single one._

"Sure. I need to initiate the download, _aniki..._she got me before I could get it started."

Ken nodded, standing aside as Jinpei worked to reconnect the leads that had been torn loose when Gel Sadra attacked him. "So we're stuck up here, huh," the Swallow said lightly, making it a statement, not a question.

Ken's mouth set in a thin line. "That's what _they_ think."

Jinpei glanced up at him, grinning. "Joe," he said.

"Uh huh." Ken remembered his birdrang and crossed the control room to retrieve it. He pulled it loose from the turbolift door and raised his wrist to call the rest of the team.

The flash of light was blinding. Ken whipped around, staring in horror as Jinpei was caught by a sizzling bolt of electricity, a grip so powerful it bent his body back in a bone breaking arc. The smell of burning flesh heaved at Ken's stomach. Jinpei was frozen, mouth open in a soundless scream, unable to move, unable to let go.

He was going to die. Ken was already moving, doing the only thing he could think of to do. He launched himself full force at the Swallow, flying through the air, body slamming into the boy with such force that he knocked him clear of the live panel that had been holding him in place. They tumbled to the floor in a heap, Ken rolling to his feet and scrambling over to cradle Jinpei in his arms.

He wasn't breathing.

Ken pushed down the panic, blinking away the vision of Jun's accusing eyes. _How could you let this happen to him..._ He started CPR. Get his helmet off. Clear the airway, ventilate, check the pulse. Start compressions. Count to fifteen, check the pulse again, ventilate. _Come on, Jinpei, breathe._ Start compressions again, check the pulse, ventilate... _Jinpei, don't do this to me..._

Without warning, Jinpei's body convulsed and his lungs suddenly inflated. Shaky with relief, blinking the sweat out of his eyes, Ken sat back. "Jinpei, can you hear me? Jinpei?"

Nothing. The Swallow was breathing but he remained unconscious, pulse weak and thready. Ken raised his wrist, about to give the code that the team feared above all others, the one that none of them ever wanted to hear. "This is G1. I have a Code G6. Repeat, Code G6."

* * *

Joe and Jun had just finished setting the charges in the power plant when their bracelets both chirped in unison. Their blood ran cold as they heard the Eagle's voice. _Code G6..._

After they had thought Joe lost at Cross Karakoram, and they had lived through the debacle of Galactor's infiltration of the team by the spy pretending to be Getz, the Hawk – Joe's replacement – they had all sworn that they would never, ever again permit another addition to their number. There would never be a G6 for the Kagaku Ninja Tai. And so the term "G6" had come to be used as their code for the only circumstance that could possibly mean a change for them...it meant one of their own was down, injured – or maybe even dead.

"Jinpei!" Jun whispered, her hand clamping down on Joe's arm hard enough to bruise the skin. All the color drained out of her face, leaving it pinched and white.

"Where are you?" Joe demanded into his bracelet mike.

"We're trapped in the control center, top of neck number three. You should find it pretty easily...they know we're here and they'll be waiting at the bottom to stop you."

"Let them try," Joe growled. "Hold on. We're coming to get you."

It didn't occur to him until he was racing for the exit, the Swan in his wake, that he hadn't asked Jinpei's condition. He realized he was afraid of the answer, afraid above all of the look he would see in Jun's eyes. If Jinpei died...the boy she had protected and risked everything for as a runaway orphan, the boy she'd practically raised from a toddler, the boy she thought of as her little brother...

He shuddered and kept running.

And then, just as he had thought things couldn't get any worse, the air filled with the strident sound of alarms.

_Kuso,_ he thought. _Now we're in for it._

* * *

As if they had heard his thoughts, the curved white corridors of the mech were suddenly filled with soldiers in green. Joe and Jun fought their way through, working for every yard they gained, caution thrown to the winds now as wave after wave of Galactors came at them. The sheer numbers were staggering – in a mech this size they probably had four or five times the enemy troops they were used to dealing with, especially when it was just the two of them against the world like this with no hope of relief. 

Only Jun's rapidly dwindling explosive charges and Joe's unrelenting cyborg strength kept them on the winning side of the equation.

But slowly and inexorably, the sheer overwhelming size of the opposing force began to tell. Heading toward exhaustion, slipping on the gore and slime that covered the corridor floor, Jun spun to face yet another opponent and her stomach lurched at the look on the Galactor's face. He knew they were beaten. He could see and feel the press of green-suited men behind him, more coming in every second. Even if she took him out, it was only a matter of time.

Jun stared at Joe, his birdstyle black with blood, visor spattered with it. She knew she must look the same. _We're never going to get through...we're never going to make it... Oh, Jinpei, I'm so sorry..._

For a moment something shifted in Joe's expression as he met her gaze...but then he shrugged, mouth quirking in a hot, hard smile. _Fuck 'em,_ his eyes said. _I'm not going down. It's not my day to die._

And as if on cue, the whole mech shook itself violently like a dog covered in water.

The deep rumble of the explosion reached them seconds later. The deck heaved up in front of their eyes, cracking open down the middle like a crevasse in snow. The screams of others ringing in her ears, Jun felt the floor disappear under her, then a sharp jolt all the way through her arm to her shoulder. She managed to get her head up, seeing that Joe was clinging to the edge of the deck with one hand and had her wrist in a vise-like grip with the other.

She looked down. The mecha had split all the way through to the sky, as if they'd collided with a giant can opener. She could see bodies still falling, hundreds of them, some of them bouncing off the jagged edges in sprays of blood.

Then Joe grunted above her, swinging her back and forth to pick up momentum. She realized what he was doing and got ready. Seconds later he flung her upwards and her wings snapped out as she turned in mid air, landing beside where he still hung from the broken edge of the deck.

Another explosion shuddered through the mech, throwing it upward and sideways. Jun threw herself face down on the floor, grabbing Joe's wrist in both hands and gripping it with everything she had. _Hold on hold on hold on..._

After what seemed like an eternity, the shaking stopped again. She could still hear screams and shouts, hear the crackling of fires breaking out. She concentrated on helping Joe get back up to the deck. "Are you all right?"

He gave her that feral grin again. "As usual, Juney, your timing was perfect."

She smiled back, knowing he was referring to the charges they'd set in the power plant, the charges responsible for all this destruction. "Not on purpose, wise guy."

"All the same." Joe gestured down the corridor. "Come on. We've got to find Ken."

He didn't dare say Jinpei's name.

* * *

The first explosion threw Ken to his knees. The entire mecha reared up in the air, the control room rocking and rolling as if in the grip of a 7.0 earthquake. The floor slanted crazily and he tumbled into a computer console, helmeted head smacking against the metal with a force that made his ears ring. 

_Jinpei._ Ken scrambled forward and covered the boy's body protectively, freezing in place until the shaking stopped. He knew what this must mean – Jun's bombs had detonated. The mecha was dying.

He had to get Jinpei out of there. Ken dragged himself to his feet and ran to the viewports, stretching around three quarters of the mecha head's diameter. He searched the sky for the sleek blue and red shape of his warship. "G5 from G1, do you read me, over..."

No answer. Ken swore as he remembered the shielding problem, realizing that however the mecha was blocking their signals, it was also preventing their bracelet communication from penetrating the walls. He stared at the _Phoenix,_ circling just out of range of the mecha's deadly laser armature. Black frustration curled in the pit of his stomach. _So near and yet so far._

The second explosion threw the mecha head drunkenly to one side, hurling Ken through the air as the floor suddenly became a vertical wall. He twisted like lightning in midair, booted feet slamming into the metal with an impact that jarred every bone in his body all the way to his teeth. Not that he was complaining. Without his training, he would have hit the deck plating broadside and snapped his ribs.

He swung around, hunting frantically for Jinpei, finding him wedged in between two computer consoles and relatively unharmed. Ken dropped and gathered the boy protectively into his arms, pushing his back against the nearest console, bracing for the metal monster's next move.

The mecha head had rocked back to rest with the floor on a thirty degree slant, forward shields down. Ahead of him, through the wide viewports, the ocean glittered in the sun.

Ten miles straight down.

* * *

"Here it is! This is number three!" Jun put on a last burst of speed as they approached the turbolift. 

She stopped a couple of feet short of it and bent over double, hands on her thighs as she gasped for breath. The stitch in her side was agonizing. "Just...give me...a minute..."

His own chest heaving from exertion, Joe stepped up to the lift doors. The panel lights were out...locked off somewhere. No time to try to figure it out. He drew the cable gun, quickly attached the drill implement and drilled a hole in the metal between the two halves of the door. "Juney, give me one of those lipstick bombs."

Jun straightened up slowly, wiping sweat from her forehead up under her visor. She unzipped a pouch and handed over one of the special shaped charges. "I've only got two left, so make it count."

"Don't I always?" Joe pushed the lipstick bomb into the hole and waved her back. They slipped around the corner and waited.

The charge exploded in a bright flash of light and a shower of metal fragments. The Condor ran to check his handiwork. The doors were half gone, plenty of room to squeeze through into the interior.

Only the turbolift wasn't there.

He held on to the blasted edge of one door and leaned in, tilting his head to look straight up the shaft. The elevator was clearly visible to his enhanced vision, sitting at the top.

But Ken had said he was trapped. This wasn't making sense.

It hit him a second later. They'd left the Eagle in the control center and locked off the elevator, thinking they had him on ice and could just keep him there until they figured out what to do with him.

But when the mecha began exploding, they'd gone back up there after him.

_Oh, shit._

Joe grabbed the maintenance ladder in both hands and started climbing.

* * *

_"A...aniki...?"_

Jinpei's quavering voice was the sweetest sound Ken had heard in a long time. He wrenched his eyes away from the hypnotizing blue-green expanse of ocean below them and looked down at the Swallow. "Shhh, Jinpei, I've got you. You're going to be okay."

"What...happened...?"

Ken managed to produce a smile from somewhere. "You know how I always told you to turn off the power before you stick your screwdriver in the slot?"

Jinpei laughed, the weak sound immediately turning into a chest wracking cough. "Shhh," Ken said, trying to keep his voice calm and soothing. "Just breathe."

A deep groan shuddered through the mecha's skin. Ken squeezed his eyes shut momentarily, fighting down panic.

_"Ken..."_

The alarm in the Swallow's low whisper snapped Ken back to awareness. Outlined clearly in reflection in the viewscreen, he could see the doors to the turbolift were open again. And coming out of the interior were at least twenty five green-suited Galactors. He recognized some of them as Gel Sadra's guard, noting that they were all heavily armed.

Pulse rifles. They weren't taking any chances this time.

Ken reached deep down into that interior place, that place that years of training had taught him he could go to if he really needed to, that place where his fear and nerves disappeared and he became as cool and emotionless as an arctic river. Feeling the icy wave wash over him, he slipped out from underneath Jinpei, wedging the boy securely out of sight in the gap between the two consoles. He stared down at the youngest member of his team, of his family, wondering if this would be the last time they saw each other in this life.

_Stay here,_ he signed. _I'll be back._

He knew even as he transmitted the words that he was lying.

Then he was gone, slipping like a wraith along the line of the console, hard eyes on the Galactors' reflections. Putting distance between himself and Jinpei. His final act as the Swallow's commander would be to draw the enemy as far away from his position as possible.

The Galactor troops were standing in a clump right outside the turbolift, surveying the control center, hesitating at the steep angle of the deck. The sharp expanding ripple of another explosion somewhere down in the mecha's interior tilted the room to the left, the horizon swinging drunkenly past the viewscreens. In the shouting and confusion as the guards hung on to whatever they could find, no one saw the bright flash of steel.

The birdrang was back in Ken's hand before the Galactors realized that four of them were dead.

The Eagle ducked, covering his head instinctively as the remaining troopers cut loose with their pulse rifles. The solid _whomp whomp_ of plasma explosions went on for what felt like minutes, blowing gaping holes in the deck and the computer consoles. Ears ringing from the blasts, Ken scrambled along the line of his cover, reaching an edge where he could peer around to see what was happening. The Galactors were firing at random, fear stark on their faces, as if frying everything in their path could keep the White Shadow at bay.

They had another think coming. Ken let loose the birdrang again, watching it slice cleanly through three more throats before returning to him, blades bright with blood.

But this time they knew where he was. Ken jumped straight up as the pulse rifles fired, turning his hiding place into metal confetti. He flipped over high in midair, snapping his wings straight out, hurling the birdrang once again. Rifle blasts tore holes in the floor as he landed, but he was already in motion again, handspringing backwards behind the cover of another console. Rolling out of the way, jagged pieces of metal flying in all directions from the place he disappeared to.

He fetched up in a corner, hard against a support pillar and a high metal databank. There was nowhere to go, and he could hear the sounds of booted feet approaching.

One direct hit from a pulse rifle and he was dead. The ice rippled through his veins and he smiled. At least he could take a few more of them with him.

He braced himself for one final leap into the air.

And paused as he heard a rifle fire again, but the energy blasts came nowhere near him. Heard yells of surprise. _What the hell...?_

He scrambled backwards in shock as a Galactor soldier came flying over the console in front of him to land face down, halfway across his legs. He kicked the man away, rolling him over as he did so. Half his chest was blown away.

_Joe._ It had to be. The rush of relief made Ken's muscles turn momentarily to water.

Then he was scrambling to the blasted edge of the console and peering around. He was greeted by the best sight he had seen in months – the Condor standing there, shuriken hanging out of one side of a shit-eating grin, a pulse rifle in each hand, one dark boot grinding the chest of a fallen Galactor into the deck plates. Dead green suited troopers like a pile of firewood around his feet.

"You want to get out of here, or are you having too much fun?" Joe inquired, seeing the white helmet poke out into view.

Ken picked himself up, shaking his head. "Where the hell have you been?" he demanded, unable to keep a wide smile from tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Took you long enough to get here."

"We were a little busy." Joe gestured with his rifle back toward the turbolift, where the Swan's white gloves had just appeared through the lower service hatch in the floor.

Jun pulled herself into view, swinging gracefully to her feet. "Aw, Joe, you didn't save any for me," she said reproachfully.

"You know how he gets," Ken said. "He sees one green uniform and he just loses all control."

Jun's eyes were momentarily bright as they found him, a sheen of relief that he was standing in front of her, unharmed. Then she said, "Ken, where's Jinpei?"

Moments later they were crouching over him. _"Onechan,"_ he whispered weakly.

Jun wrapped him in her arms, swallowing hard around the lump in her throat. _Thank you,_ her eyes said to Ken. _Thank you for keeping him safe._

"We've got to get out of here," Ken said. "This mech's going nowhere but down. We can't hail Ryu because the signal can't penetrate the shielding – I know, I've tried."

"Uh, Ken..."

He glanced sharply over at the Condor's tone of voice. Joe was staring at the console dead ahead of him, at a large flashing red light on a very familiar panel.

_Oh, fuck,_ Ken thought. _Someone's triggered the self destruct code._

More likely some_thing_ – with all the shooting and mayhem, it was probably the result of a shorted wire. Not that it mattered...this mecha head was going up in less than five minutes and they'd be going with it unless they got out now.

Ken moved Jun aside, picked up Jinpei in his arms and led the way toward the turbolift.

And stopped as more green suited Galactors armed with rifles began to appear through the service hatch.

Ken and Joe stared at each other for a brief moment. Then Joe tossed one of the pulse rifles he was still holding to his commander, bringing up the other one and opening fire at the turbolift. Thinking quickly, Ken shoved Jinpei into Jun's arms. "Hang on!" he shouted above the _whomp whomp_ of Joe's covering fire.

Then he swung around and fired his rifle at the outer skin of the mecha head.

The air shrieked out of the gaping hole the energy beam left. Bracing himself against the drag of the wind, Ken fired again, widening the opening. He grabbed Jun by the shoulders. "Get him out of here!" he ordered. "We'll hold them off."

"Ken, no!" Her eyes were wide with horror at the thought of leaving them there.

"You've got to, Juney, you've got to get Jinpei to safety," Ken insisted, pushing her towards the hole. "Call Ryu as soon as you're clear...he'll have plenty of time to get underneath you and pick you up."

She was still shaking her head. He had her backed right up against the opening now. "Go, Jun. We'll be right behind you, I promise."

_"Ken..."_

Without warning he shoved her backwards, hard. Unable to regain her balance with Jinpei in her arms, she fell through the hole in the mecha wall.

He stepped up to the opening, watching anxiously, relieved to see her wings snap out as she righted herself. Jinpei's arms went around her neck and her arm came up as she hailed the _Phoenix._

_She's going to kill me,_ Ken thought, _but at least she'll still be alive to do it._ He turned back into the room. "They're clear!" he told his second.

Joe nodded. "Wanna give me a hand here, or am I doing the rest of this job by myself, too?"

Ken grinned, swinging up the rifle and helping him finish off the last of the invading green suited troops. "Okay," he said when it was finally over. "Time to go."

Joe followed him to the opening. Ken put both hands on the sides of the hole, prepared to jump – and froze.

Ten miles, straight down.

"Ken?" Joe asked, concern edging his voice.

Ken couldn't answer him. He couldn't move.

_Falling, wings in shreds, whipping out behind him in useless ribbons the color of blood on snow..._

"Ken!" Joe was shouting in his ear. "We have to go, _now!"_

_It wasn't his father any more, it was Berg Katse, roaring maniacally as he pushed him deeper, further and further under the dark green waves until he couldn't see the light anymore..._

_Ten miles, straight down._

And then the whole world went white.

* * *

Ryu's head whipped around as Jun came down in the lift tube, Jinpei in her arms. "Is he all right?" 

"I think so. I have to check him over," Jun said. She came forward, setting the Swallow down in his chair and moving to stand behind Ryu. "Do you see them yet?"

Ryu shook his head.

The mecha was disintegrating in front of their eyes, huge chunks the size of buildings breaking away and plunging in the direction of the water far below. "They're in the third head," Jun said, pointing. "That's the command center."

And then, as they watched, the mecha head detonated. Pieces of it blew outward, fragments cartwheeling viciously in all directions like shrapnel from a claymore mine. What was left of the head broke off cleanly and began to tumble almost in slow motion toward the ocean.

Above it, the great body of the mecha finally split in half, the rest of its metal plating tearing in two. The two halves hung in midair for a long impossible moment, then tilted crazily, picking up speed as they rocketed down after the falling command center.

"No," Jun whispered. _"No..._ Ryu, they have to have gotten out...they _have_ to have..."

But there wasn't a wing – dark or light – in sight.


	2. Part II

**_Author's Note: I take acouple of smallliberties with canon in this story. It's set during Gatchaman II, so Joe's a cyborg...but they still have their original vehicles and weapons, and a life outside of G-Town. Apologies to Tatsunoko... :-)_**

**_Standard disclaimer: I adore them, but sadly don't own them. Sigh. _**

**_

* * *

_**

THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

**_PART II_**

The lights were off.

Strange, Ken thought, Jun never turned off _all_ the lights...she believed that having some kind of illumination even when the Snack J wasn't open helped discourage burglars. And it was early yet...the bar should still be open. He frowned a little as he realized that the street was unnaturally quiet, too...no traffic, nobody on the sidewalks. Where was everyone?

He pushed on the door. It opened easily, and he stepped into the gloom. Dust motes danced in the bright shaft of light that streamed in through a side window from the street lamp outside. He squinted, but in the darkness beyond it the Snack was deserted, just like the streets.

Ken's fingers tightened on the edge of the door. "Jun?"

_"Baka,_ Jun's not here. You know that."

Ken jumped at the sudden rumble of Joe's voice. He blinked...a moment ago he could have sworn that there was nobody in here, but now he could see his gunner sitting at the counter in his familiar spot. "Where...where is she, then?" he asked. "And where is everybody else?"

Joe shrugged expansively. "Hey, I mind my own business. All I know is there're just the three of us here."

"The...three of us?"

"You, me and the bartender."

"The bartender?"

Joe fixed him with a look. "Are you going to keep repeating everything I say? Because if you are, it's going to be a long night."

Ken opened his mouth, thought better of it, and shut it again. He peered around the semi darkness of the Snack's interior. "Is Jinpei around?"

Joe sighed. "What did I just say? You, me..."

"...And the bartender. Got it." Ken glanced at the opened beer in front of Joe. "How many of those have you had?"

"Not nearly enough," the gunner grunted, picking up the bottle for another long swig.

"Joe!" Ken stared in horror as the frothy liquid began to pour out from a gaping wound in his second's abdomen.

Joe looked down, his expression mildly annoyed. "Shit. Happens every time. How am I supposed to get drunk, that's what I want to know?"

The liquid had turned the color of blood now, dripping on to the floor in splashes of bright red. Ken backed away, breathing hard, ice clawing at his spine. "What the fuck is this? Where are we? _Who the hell are you?"_

Blood had begun to trickle from the side of Joe's mouth now. He grinned, wiping it away with the back of his hand. "What's the matter, Ken? Can't take the sight of a little blood? I thought Washios didn't cry..."

Steel fingers grabbed Ken's heart and squeezed it hard, choking off his breath. He remembered it all now..the nightmare, the mecha, the explosion of light and sound, and then...then...

_Baka, Jun's not here. You know that._

"Joe, are we..." his voice was a whisper. He couldn't finish the sentence.

"Dead?" Joe grinned. "Naah. Not yet, anyway."

Ken stared at him. "How do you know?"

Joe jerked his thumb behind him. "Bartender told me. And if you can't believe your bartender, who the hell can you believe?"

Ken looked beyond him...and his jaw dropped. At the other end of the bar, towel over one arm, polishing a glass, was the tall purple-clad figure of Berg Katse.

Katse waved, smiling brightly.

_Ten miles, straight down._

Ken couldn't get breath into his lungs. He stood there, frozen, staring.

And then the blackness reared up and smacked him back into oblivion.

* * *

It was dark and cold, and he hurt like hell. 

During the first war against Sosai X, the Kagaku Ninja Tai had gone up against the King Dragon, a mecha with such superior weaponry that it had wiped the floor with them in their first encounter. The Phoenix had crashed into the ocean, nearly killing all those aboard, and only the quick thinking of the ISO retrieval teams had rescued them from their crippled, flooding ship. As well as the emotional agony of the defeat, Ken remembered only too well how he had felt physically the next day...bruised and battered, black and blue from the pounding of gravitational forces and the trauma of the crash. Walking was an effort...hell, breathing was an effort.

He felt like that now, here. Wherever "here" was.

Something touched him, whisper soft. Ken's wired nerves recoiled in shock, his eyes snapped open and he stared straight into the purple masked face of Berg Katse.

He howled in surprise, stiff-arming the apparition away. His gloved hands ripped through something that gave like thick paper. What the _hell...?_

Agony bloomed in his chest, kicking the breath out of his lungs, sparking white at the edge of his vision. Ken gasped, sagged back against the ground. He knew that pain. Ribs, could be broken - maybe only cracked if he was lucky. It was going to hurt like a sonofabitch but it wasn't anything he hadn't dealt with before. He would have to find something to strap them up until he could get out of this.

Whatever "this" was.

Pieces of the whatever-it-was he had shredded were settling back to earth beside him. Movement above him caught his eye and he realized that more were falling - poster-sized snowflakes drifting slowly to the floor all around him, littering the ground like debris after a parade. Try as he might he couldn't see where they were coming from.

He reached out carefully and caught the edge of the nearest one. His stomach lurched as he turned it over and recognized it. Propaganda poster. Katse had dropped millions of them during the first war - usually after he had bombed half a city and was wanting to spread the gospel according to Galactor to intimidate the living shit out of the other half.

But what were Berg Katse's propaganda posters doing here, now? And where the hell was _here?_

Ken lay still for a moment, extending his trained awareness into the darkness, feeling for the presence of others. Nothing. He turned his head, staring into the gloom. There was a thin, cold light coming from somewhere, just enough to lend relief to the shadows and let him see that the place he was in was cavernous, littered with mounds of twisted debris. The floor was cold and hard under his back, and he couldn't see the ceiling.

Slowly, carefully, he tried to sit up - and instantly found he couldn't. There was something very heavy lying across his stomach and upper thighs. He slid his hands underneath the top edge, pushed as hard as he could.

He'd forgotten about the ribs. He bit back a cry at the fierce searing pain, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment - willing the thick, choking rush of nausea to subside. It did, after a long few moments, and he braced himself to try again.

Three more unspeakably agonizing attempts and the large chunk of metal debris slid sideways enough for him to slide out from under. By that time all he could do was roll over on his side before throwing up violently. For a long time - it could have been minutes or hours, he was in too much pain to know - he lay there dragging in shallow gulps of air, shaking and sweating and waiting for the gray-out to clear.

"Ken..."

The familiar voice snapped him back to awareness. Ken stared around him. "Joe? Joe, where are you?"

The rumble of Joe's laughter choked off in a rasping cough. "How the hell should I know? Where are _you...?"_

Ken dragged himself painfully to hands and knees, grabbed the edge of the chunk of metal that had pinned him down. He pushed himself upright through sheer force of will. "Keep talking... I'll...find you."

"Thought that had to be you puking your guts out over there. Are you hurt?"

Pain stabbed though Ken's left leg like a hot wire, all the way to the hip. More good news. _"Baka,_ of course I'm hurt. We fell, what, ten miles?"

Joe laughed again, more carefully this time, Ken noted. "And that was before we hit the water."

The leg would bear his weight. Ken made his protesting body move in the direction of Joe's voice. He stumbled over an obstacle almost immediately, low to the ground. Shit, it was so dim in here, if only he could see where he was going a little better...

Of course. The flare globes. Cursing himself for not remembering sooner, he reached into his belt and brought out a tiny globe. He twisted the top half of it and bright light flooded out in all directions.

"I was wondering when you'd remember those," Joe said, annoyingly.

Ken ground his teeth, the pain making his temper short. "Yeah? Funny, I didn't notice you throwing any light on the subject."

And then he looked up, and the blood drained out of his face as he saw the reason why.

His second was immobilized, pinned hard upright against a bulkhead by what looked like an entire instrument panel from the wrecked command center. The crumpled hulk of metal completely hid him from the shoulders down.

Ken scrambled over the debris toward him, his own injuries momentarily forgotten. _"Kuso,_ Joe, you're asking me if _I'm_ hurt?"

"Only because I know what a wuss you are."

"Sure, sure. You just keep telling yourself that." He reached the gunner's side, finding with relief that he could get within a couple of feet of him at the right hand edge of the panel. "How bad is it?" he asked.

Joe's mouth twisted. "I don't know. I'd look, but there's a great big piece of metal in the way."

"Can you move at all?" Ken frowned at the trickle of blood that had congealed in a thin trail over his chin from the corner of his mouth, stark against the gunner's pale, waxy skin. Joe was breathing in short, shallow gasps, but then that wasn't entirely unexpected considering he was pinned in place by a ton of metal panel.

Joe shook his head. Ken reached out. "I'm going to take your helmet off...okay?"

Joe nodded. Ken reached over and carefully began removing the helmet. Once it was clear he checked Joe's neck, found to his relief that there didn't seem to be any damage to the cervical spine. "Wait a minute," he said suddenly. "You should be able to push this thing off yourself easy, with your strength. Just..."

Joe looked at him, and the expression in his eyes stabbed fear through Ken. _"Baka._ You think I wouldn't have done that if I could?"

It was then that Ken noticed the dark, sticky stain on the floor beneath his boots.

_Oh, no. Oh, God, no._ "Joe," he said slowly, fighting down the sharp flare of panic under his diaphragm. "Tell me the truth."

Joe was silent for a long moment. Then: "I don't know...I can't feel much. I think...I think a piece of this fucking thing's gone right through me."

_Shit, shit, shit..._ Ken's mind was racing. He knew without a second's doubt that if his gunner had been a normal man instead of a cyborg, he would already be dead. "It's going to be all right," he said numbly, automatically. "We're going to get you out of here."

Joe laughed, the sound almost instantly breaking off into a choking, wheezing cough. He got hold of it quickly, eyes closing with the effort of bringing his breathing back under control. "You don't even know where we are," he said at last.

"You mean apart from under about a thousand feet of water?"

Joe shook his head impatiently. "No, I mean where we _are."_ He threw a glance up toward the ceiling, somewhere far up in the gloom beyond the reach of the little flare globe's light. "This is so much bigger than..."

Understanding flared in Ken's eyes. "The command center detonated," he said. "I remember the explosion."

Joe nodded. Ken said: "That means some of it must have held together - if we'd hit the water without some kind of protection we would have been smashed to pulp."

"So how the fuck did _this_ happen?" Joe indicated the cavernous space they were in.

Ken held up the flare globe, trying to see more of their surroundings without much success. "We're still in the mecha, we must be...at least some part of it, anyway. There are a bunch of Katse's old posters over there where I woke up."

He moved down the wall slowly, running a gloved hand over its surface. "You know what I think? The rest of the mecha must have fallen on top of us."

"Uh huh." Joe's grunt sounded unconvinced.

But Ken was warming to his theory now. "Yeah...when it hit the surface it must have trapped a whole bunch of air in its decks - like when you push a glass down underwater open end first. Remember those experiments we did in school with insects that live on water, the ones that trap air in bubbles so they can breathe? When it hit bottom it was so big it covered us completely and dug down a few feet into the sand, sealing the air inside."

Joe looked at him for a long moment. Then he started to laugh again. "Ken, you've been hanging around Hakase's lab again. That is the stupidest explanation I have ever heard."

"You got anything better?" Ken challenged.

Joe grunted and looked away. "I didn't think so," Ken nodded, with the ghost of a smile.

A deep groan shuddered through the metal structure around them. Both men froze as they felt the floor shift under their feet. Somewhere nearby something very large crashed to the floor, the impact sending booming echoes through the semi darkness.

_"Shimatta,"_ Ken whispered under his breath, when at last the wreckage of the mecha was still again.

"You know," Joe said, with an attempt at a conversational tone, "if this thing splits apart, the pressure's gonna crack our ribs like an empty beer can."

Ken flicked him a dry glance. "Yeah, about five seconds before we drown."

Joe did his best to shrug despite being almost completely immobilized. "Either way."

Ken leaned back against the wall beside him, breathing shallowly to try to ease the agony in his ribs. He studied Joe's profile, the lines around his eyes and mouth that told the truth about how much pain his second was really in. "We're going to get out of this, Joe," he said quietly. "Jun and Ryu saw us go down. They won't stop looking until they find us."

Joe didn't answer. Ken looked away, trying not to think about how big the rubble field had to be, for a mecha the size this one had been. Or about how the others couldn't get a lock on their bracelets through these walls.

With a sick, sinking clarity, he was realizing that he couldn't count on outside help reaching them in time. If they were going to get out of this one, he was going to have to make it happen alone.

"Katse?" Joe asked suddenly.

"What?"

"What are Katse's posters doing on this mecha? He's been dead more than two years."

Ken's head was beginning to ache, whether from the way his damaged ribs were forcing him to breathe or from the tension of the situation, he couldn't tell. "I don't know. Maybe Jinpei and Ryu were right...they put this thing together from partial builds they had left over from the last war. It sure was ugly enough."

"Then there's a chance," Joe said.

Ken looked at him. "A chance of what?"

"That there's another escape pod," Joe continued. "If another section of this mecha had one..."

"Yeah, if I can find it in time, if it happens to be somewhere in the part of the mecha we have access to..."

Joe snorted. "You want a map, too?"

Ken almost grinned despite the hard ache in his ribs. "If it's here, I'll find it," he promised.

The shudder that ran through the deck plates beneath them was worse than the first time. Joe grunted in surprised pain as the panel that was pinning him shifted. High up in the darkness an ominous creaking sound came and went.

Ken realized he'd been holding his breath. He glanced over at his second, not liking the gray cast to his skin or the slightly unfocused look in his eyes. He didn't want to leave him, but there was no choice. "Joe, I've got to find a way to get us out of here. I'll leave this flash globe...I've got a couple more. Is there anything...?"

Joe coughed. A fresh trickle of blood covered the dried trail from the corner of his mouth to his chin. "We could do the birdrang thing again," he grunted, "but I've never tried throwing it with my teeth."

The words were like a sucker punch to the stomach. Ken stood there staring at Joe in disbelief as they kept echoing through his head, feeling like his second had just rammed a frozen fireplace poker through his chest. He couldn't breathe and his eyes, oh, God, his eyes were welling up. He swung away quickly, belatedly trying to hide his stricken expression.

Too late. "Ken," Joe said, "wait a minute...I didn't..."

With a superhuman effort Ken managed to summon his voice. "Forget it," he snapped. He fished blindly in his belt for another flash globe as he stumbled away.

"Ken!" Joe's voice boomed after him. "Ken, for fuck's sake..."

His voice broke off in a paroxysm of racking coughs. Ken flinched at the sound but it only made him push forward even faster. All he could think about was getting away, now, before...

He let out a choking sob as he rammed full on into a knee high chunk of twisted metal. His injured leg gave under him and he went down hard on one knee, stomach lurching from the sharp, almost nauseous strength of the pain. It felt perversely good. Something tangible to focus on, something real. Something that wasn't...wasn't...

_No._ Ken closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating on his breathing, getting himself back under control. _I can't do this. I can't do this now. I have to get us out of here. _

He reached for the hunk of debris in front of him and leaned on it, forcing himself back on to his feet. And stopped again as he heard the wet splashing sounds his boots were suddenly making.

There was an inch of water over the deck plates. The mecha was flooding.

* * *

He didn't know how long he'd been walking. 

The burning pain in his chest was making it difficult to think clearly...or was it because the air was getting thinner? He didn't know anymore. The water level was approaching mid-calf level now and making every step harder and harder to take, his injured leg driving spikes of protest up into his hip every time his weight came back down on that side. His mouth was dry with thirst, but although he was splashing through acre after acre of water, of course he couldn't drink any of it. That was an irony that almost made him laugh.

Any kind of rest was out of the question, of course. He knew that, although after a while he actually began to fantasize about it - as if he was on some kind of bizarre mecha walking tour and there were green-suited Galactor soldiers at pre-arranged checkpoints, handing him bottles of water and pointing him to a convenient deck chair.

It suddenly penetrated his increasingly fuzzy awareness that he had no idea where he was. Had he made a left or a right at the last intersection? What about the one before that? He stopped, turning and staring back the way he'd come. All the corridors looked the same.

Worry stabbed at him, burning away a little of the exhausted, pain-filled fog from his brain. What if he stumbled on a way out of this pile of scrap and then couldn't find Joe again?

The remote. He fished it quickly out of his belt pouch, depressed the switch, and let himself relax a little as the display beeped comfortingly back at him. Thank God for a locator chip that still worked, left anchored to the entrance to the cavernous chamber where Joe was trapped.

He'd lost Joe once because he'd had no choice but to leave him. It wasn't going to happen again.

Joe had been right, the Frankenstein's monster-like construction of the mecha meant that there was more than one escape pod - he'd already found two. But they were useless to him, as long as he couldn't move that control panel off his second's chest. And if Joe was right about the metal having actually penetrated his body, then it would be incredibly dangerous to move it anyway. He had seen people run through and pinned by wreckage before, and been stunned at the speed with which they bled out when it was moved.

Jun and Ryu were their only hope, now. And it was up to him to tell them where they were.

He needed an airlock, some way to get his bracelet out into open water without getting himself crushed by the pressure. His zig-zag course was designed to sooner or later bring him to the outer skin of the mecha, where he hoped that he would find what he needed. It seemed to be taking him a long time to get there.

Something flashed past the edge of his vision. Ken's head snapped up. What the hell...? Was someone else trapped down here?

He held still for a long moment, but didn't see anything. He drew the birdrang slowly, snicking open its curved blades. If someone else were down here, and they were hostile, in his current condition it wouldn't be smart to get too close without being prepared.

He began to move toward the next intersection, which was about where he thought he had seen the movement. When he finally reached it, he looked carefully down both the right and left corridors. Nothing.

Maybe there hadn't been anyone there. Maybe he was seeing things.

Maybe that wasn't a long purple glove floating in the water three feet down the left hand corridor.

Ken froze, staring at it in disbelief.

_It can't be. I must be losing my mind._

He stepped forward and bent down painfully, trailing his fingers in the water toward it as if expecting it to be nothing more than an apparition, a trick of the light. He almost jumped when his hand touched the solidity of fabric.

And then that flicker of movement again, further down the corridor.

Ken shoved the wet glove through his belt and lunged after it.

* * *

He couldn't catch up. 

The figure was always too far ahead to see clearly, always just a flash of brightly colored cloak disappearing around yet another corner. Sobbing with a mixture of agony and frustration, Ken gave it everything he had, pushing himself harder and harder until the stabbing in his ribs and the slashing pain in his injured leg faded away and all there was, was the purple clad apparition ahead of him. Faster and faster, the corridor around him fading into swirling, sparking white, his vision tunneling down. He was lightheaded, euphoric, flying. Somewhere in the back of his mind a frantic voice railed at him, _you're hypoxic, you're not breathing, you're going to pass out..._but he wouldn't stop. He _couldn't _stop.

He had Berg Katse in his sights, and nothing on earth was going to make him stop now.

_He's dead he's dead he's dead you know he's dead,_ the voice hammered at him. "No!" Ken gasped, leaning into his stride, pushing past the limits, needing still more speed. The lights were growing brighter, his vision blurring now, the edges disappearing into a thick pounding blackness.

Everything was slowing down.

He realized with a shock that the purple clad figure had stopped running. The corridor ahead of him dead-ended in a t-junction, and Katse seemed uncertain which way to go. The Galactor leader swung around, back against the far wall, looking right at his pursuer.

It was now or never. _"Katse!"_ Ken yelled - and launched himself into the air.

Once again, he'd forgotten about his ribs.

The agony was instant and hideous, the force of the air pressure under his spreading wings tearing his chest apart. Explosions of red and white burst in his brain, and he dimly heard his own voice scream as the blackness smacked down and snuffed him out. He was unconscious long before he crashed into the far wall, crumpling down it like a great broken bird to the floor below.

* * *

"Ken, are you down there?" Joe's voice came echoing through the rock tunnel. 

For a moment, Ken thought about ignoring him, but he knew how pigheadedly stubborn Joe could be. "Yeah," he said. "But since I forgot to tell everyone, could you yell a little louder and save me the trouble?"

Joe snorted. As usual, the words rolled off him without leaving a mark. "Where the hell have you been? We were supposed to run the new obstacle course."

Ken didn't answer. He was sitting on the edge of the cliff near the mansion - or, rather, _inside_ the cliff in their secret place, a tiny cave that opened about twenty feet down from the top edge. It was accessible only through a tunnel just tall enough for a man to stand in if he bent over a little, leading twenty-five feet back through the rock and emerging buried in the tangled roots of a huge old tree. They had spent many hours here since they were ten years old and Joe had discovered the entrance by accident, when he'd been wrestling Ken in the branches of the old tree and had fallen straight between the roots into the hole below. Ken smiled, remembering how he had panicked momentarily, thinking that the ground had opened up and swallowed the Condor whole.

The cave had seemed much bigger then. Three years later they had both had growth spurts, and now it was just wide enough for the two of them to sit side by side and dangle their feet over the edge.

Joe's footsteps echoed off the stone walls as he came down and dropped beside Ken, back pushed up against one side of the cave, feet propped up on the other behind the Eagle. A feather shuriken dangled out of the side of his mouth like a forgotten straw. "What's wrong with you? Are you sick?"

"No. I was...thinking."

"Thinking? _Baka,_ you do enough of that already."

"Hakase hates it when you do that," Ken said pointedly, referring to the shuriken Joe was chewing.

"Yeah," Joe grinned. "I know."

Ken rolled his eyes. Then he turned back, staring out at the ocean far below their perch. After a moment he said, "There are other teams, Joe."

Joe's brows drew together. He either didn't understand, or didn't want to. "What you do you mean, 'other teams'?"

"Teams like us. We're not the only ones they're training."

"How do you know that?" Joe asked.

"I saw him."

Joe's frown deepened. "Saw who?"

It took Ken a long moment to force the words out past a throat that had gone unnaturally tight. "The other...me."

Joe snorted. "What do you mean, the other _you?_ You don't know –"

"He was in birdstyle," Ken said in a very low voice. "Birdstyle just like ours...like _mine._ White wings, Joe. He took his helmet off and I saw his face."

There was a silence beside him as Joe attempted to digest the words. He picked up a piece of crumbled rock in one hand and hurled it in a high arc towards the waves. "Shit," he said at last.

Ken nodded. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, really. I mean, there's got to be some sort of failsafe, in case I...we...don't make it."

"Don't make it?" Joe growled. "There's no way you're not going to make it, Ken. They can take their fucking failsafes and shove them up their..."

Ken turned haunted eyes on him. "You don't get it, Joe. It's not about me. It's not about any of us." His gaze slid back to the expanse of glittering blue water, crested by flecks of white near the shore. "It's really going to happen. I mean, I guess I always knew it, but today, when I saw him...all of a sudden I really _knew_ it. In here." He balled his right hand into a fist, pressing into his diaphragm. "Do you know what I mean?"

Joe nodded silently, watching him.

"There's going to be a war," Ken said. "A war unlike anything this world has ever seen, and we're going to be right in the middle of it."

There was something chilling about Ken's quiet words, the Eagle speaking instead of the friend Joe knew. It made him uncomfortable, and he grinned to defuse the feeling. "Bring it on. I'm ready."

"Stop it, Joe!" Ken said, eyes burning with sudden anger. "This is for _real,_ not like training, or one of Ryu's vidgames. We're really going to have to go out there and kill."

Joe's eyes glittered. "I know," he said, voice hard and flat.

Ken glanced at him, remembering what he had momentarily forgotten - that an eight year old Joe had seen his parents shot to death in front of him, and had tried to kill the Devil Star assassin before she had thrown a rose bomb and stopped him. Joe knew only too well what killing was. _Still..._

He exhaled heavily. "That's not all, Joe. They could kill _us._ Ryu, Jinpei, Jun." He turned away again. "You."

Joe smirked. "Me? Never gonna happen. Not on a bad day in hell."

A strange, unpleasant feeling curled in the pit of Ken's stomach, sliding through his body to reach cold fingers up his spine. He tried to smile, couldn't quite make the corners of his mouth turn up enough. He stared back down at the ocean.

"Give me your hand," Joe said.

Ken looked back at him, startled. "What?"

Joe had brought his feet down and was now sitting cross-legged across from him, his hand out. "Your right hand. Give it to me."

"Why?"

"Fuck, Ken, do you always have to know 'why' before you do something?"

Ken's mouth twitched. "You say things like that out loud, and you wonder why they put me in charge?"

Joe's brows drew together in mock reproval. "Hand."

Ken brought his legs up from the edge, scooting around until he was sitting cross-legged like Joe and facing him. Still a little wary, he held out his right hand. Joe turned it palm up and cupped his left hand underneath it.

Then he took the shuriken out of his mouth.

"Joe..." Ken began, then gasped more from surprise than pain as Joe sliced the razor sharp point across the pad of his right index finger. Blood welled up in a thin, bright line. Joe switched the shuriken to his other hand and made the same cut in his own right forefinger. Then he grasped Ken's hand tightly in his as if they were shaking hands.

"Say it after me. I, Giorgio Asakura, swear on my blood and the blood of my family that if we die, we die together. We leave nobody behind, ever."

Ken's hand shook. He stared into the hard glittering fire of Joe's eyes. "I, Ken Washio, swear on my blood and the blood of my family that if we die, we die together. We leave nobody behind, ever."

Despite the warmth of the day the air was suddenly very cold, the sky darkening as if the sun had gone behind a cloud. Ken shivered, a chill running through his body.

Joe held on to his hand for a moment longer, then gave a nod of satisfaction and released it. "That's a Sicilian blood oath. Believe me, you don't want to break one of those!"

He stuck his cut finger into his mouth. Ken just stared down at the blood smeared across his palm as though his hand didn't belong to him.

"Stings, doesn't it?" Joe said. "Good thing that wasn't one of the poisoned ones." He paused. "At least, I don't think it was..."

Ken shot him a sharp glance, then relaxed as he saw the Condor's wide grin. "Sucker," Joe said.

Bloody hand forgotten, Ken launched himself at him.

But Joe wasn't there.

* * *

The sun snuffed out like a candle and he fell straight through the rock wall, plunging forward with a soundless scream into a great black hole. 

_Falling endlessly, wings in useless ribbons, the ocean coming at him hard and fast... _

_Ten miles straight down... _

"Ken, get up. _Ken!"_

The voice was so familiar. _Who..._

The falling sensation was gone. With a tremendous effort, Ken forced his eyes to open. He groaned inwardly as he realized that far from waking out of a dream, he was waking back _into_ one - and it was shaping up to be a world class nightmare.

He was half sitting, half lying in a crumpled heap against the corridor wall of the mecha. The water level had risen considerably - it was easily two feet deep now, lapping at his upper chest in his slumped position. One wing was trapped under his body, the other floated on the water's surface, crimson side up, like a feathered pool of blood.

He'd been lucky. If he'd slipped all the way to the floor he would have drowned.

Lucky was a relative statement, of course. He tried to move, almost crying out in agony. He was cold and stiff from being in the water, and his entire body hurt as if he'd been battered with a club. His ribs were on fire. He sagged back against the wall, trying to find a way to breathe that wouldn't feel as though the skin was being stripped off the inside of his lungs.

"Ken! Come on, boy, move!"

_Oh, God. It can't be._

_Father...? _

He forced his head up, his helmet weighing a ton. Squinted in disbelief at the familiar red-clad legs planted squarely in front of him. Lifted his eyes higher, half in dread, half in anticipation.

Kentaro Washio was looking down at him. "You have to get up, Ken. You're not finished."

Ken just stared. "How...?" he whispered.

"That's on a need to know basis, son...and you don't need to know."

"Katse..." Memory flooded back and Ken tried to move again, bit back a sob of agony as something grated nauseatingly in his injured leg. "What happened to Katse...I had him, he was right there..."

The elder Washio shook his head impatiently. "You're talking nonsense, boy. Did you hit your head?"

Ken reached to his belt and grabbed the purple glove, waving it at his father. "He was here! I was chasing him. If he wasn't here, then what's this?"

Red Impulse snorted. "A purple glove. But what does that prove, except that we both agree it exists?"

Ken closed his eyes. He was in no shape for a philosophical argument with a ghost. "I saw him," he whispered, stubbornly.

"Katse's dead," Kentaro reminded him.

"So are you," Ken ground out.

"Well, at least I made it count. Not to mention managing to go out in a blaze of glory."

Ken made a face at his father's satisfied smile. "Is that all that matters to you?"

"Dying right is important, Ken," his father said reprovingly. "You need to think about that, especially in your position. You're Gatchaman, the great white hope." He smiled briefly at his own joke. "People need something to remember you by."

_"K'so,_ you're just like Joe."

The elder Washio's mouth quirked. "Now that's what I call an interesting observation."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Never mind. We're wasting time here, Ken. On your feet!"

Ken tried again to get his legs under him. His body cooperated only sluggishly, and the pain was excruciating. The last time he'd been hurt close to this bad he'd spent almost a month in the hospital, and this asshole was expecting him to leap to his feet as if nothing had happened. "I...can't..."

"Come on, boy, you want the world to remember that the great Gatchaman drowned falling out of a mecha?" Red Impulse glanced around him meaningfully. "An _ugly _mecha?"

"Why are you...so concerned...with what they put...on my tombstone?" Ken panted, scowling.

"Aren't _you?"_ Kentaro raised one eyebrow interrogatively.

Ken met his piercing gaze for a moment, then looked away, face flushing angrily. "Fuck you."

"Well," Kentaro said conversationally, "at least that's better than 'I can't.'"

Ken gritted his teeth at the whining, cry-baby emphasis his father put on the last two words. "You think just because I find out two minutes before you die that you're my father, it gives you the right to..."

"Get with the program, soldier!" Red Impulse snapped. "You don't have a choice here! If you stay there you'll drown. And so will the Condor."

_Joe._ Ken forced his mind away from imagining all the things that could have happened since he'd left his gunner trapped in that cavernous hold. Joe had to be all right...he _had_ to be. Leaning back against the wall for support, closing his eyes against the pain that racked his body, he managed to raise one hand towards his father. His shoulder screamed with the effort. "Then help me."

Kentaro shook his head impatiently. _"Think,_ son. I'm not really here. Don't you know that?"

Ken opened his eyes, anger flaring white in his gut. He kept the hand extended. "What do you mean you're not _here,_ you son of a bitch? You're standing right in front of me. For once in your miserable fucking life, help me!"

"Self-pity will get you nowhere, boy," Red Impulse remarked, unruffled.

Ken just stared at him. He dropped the arm, his shoulder no longer able to support the extension.

"I've helped you many times, Ken. You just didn't know it because you didn't know what you needed, and I did."

"You don't even know me," Ken snapped. "How the hell would you know what I need?"

Kentaro almost smiled. "You know that old saying about apples and trees?"

"I am nothing like you!" Ken growled.

"Aren't you, now." The elder Washio folded his arms, making it a statement, not a question. "I'm proud of you, though, for not repeating some of the mistakes I made. You and your mother..."

"Is that what I was? A _mistake?"_

Kentaro gazed down at his son, eyes dark and serious. "That isn't what I was going to say, Ken, and deep down, you know that. No man worth anything walks away from his family without it leaving a scar on him."

Ken snorted. "If we left a scar on you, it was someplace I never saw."

Kentaro nodded. "I kept it from you because I had to, Ken. I was a soldier, like you. I went where I had to, to do what had to be done. Like you."

Ken sagged wearily against the corridor wall, closing his eyes briefly. Rest. He just needed to rest. "Didn't you ever get tired of saving the world?"

"I've done my part, Gatchaman. It's up to you now."

"What kind of bullshit is... " Ken began, but stopped as he opened his eyes again. The corridor was empty.

And right where Kentaro Washio had been standing was a large door marked AIRLOCK.

* * *

He lay there for a long time, staring at the airlock door. 

It was only perhaps eight feet away, but it might as well have been eight miles. _You've got to move. If you don't, Joe will drown. _

Move. That was funny. He couldn't even get a decent lung full of air.

Damn, he was getting punchy. Ken dragged his mind back to focus on the next step ahead of him, reaching that door. Gritting his teeth, he tried once more to get his legs under him. Trouble was, there was nothing to hold on to, no leverage on these smooth metal corridor walls he could use to help pull himself upright.

He fought down the despair that threatened to choke him after the fourth hideously painful attempt. _Come on, dammit, you can do better than this. Think. There has to be a way. _

He stared over at the airlock door again. It sat there mocking him with its stoic gray rivets and its stubby little..._handle._

There was a handle on the airlock door. If he could just get to it...

_Use the water._ The thought brought with it a rush of hope. Of course...it was more than two feet deep now, which was plenty for his purposes. Ken switched gears, forcing his battered, pain-wracked body to uncurl, letting the water support his weight. Yes, this was better...this was going to work. One good push off the corridor wall and he floated easily to the other side.

Okay, now for Phase II. This part was going to be considerably harder. One of Sensei Hatsumi's favorite sayings came to him..._Starve the imagination and feed the will._ Couldn't get much more appropriate for this situation, he thought grimly. Not giving himself any more time to think about it, he maneuvered underneath the door handle and reached up. Locking both gloved hands around the smooth gray metal, he counted to three, and began the slow, agonizing process of hauling himself to his feet.

By the time he was upright, his vision was shimmering white around the edges, every muscle was trembling convulsively and his body under the birdstyle was soaked with sweat. He was gasping for breath and leaning on the door for support, but he was on his _feet,_ and dammit, he was going to stay there. He took a painful, shuffling step forward, paused for a moment, testing. Hurt like hell, but he could walk.

He allowed himself a small smile as he realized that heavy handed and bombastic as they might be, his father's tactics of keeping him in the game had worked yet again. _I guess you're right after all, you old bastard. I am a Washio._

Mouth twisting, he made a mental note never to share any of this with Joe. His gunner would have a field day.

_Joe. _He glanced down at the water. It was up above his knees now, heading for mid thigh. His heart lurched as he thought of his gunner staring at the same rising water, only unable to escape its advance. _You've got to get a move on here, Washio. You've got to get him out of there. _

Time to get down to business. He turned back toward the airlock door. It was a reassuringly standard setup - green light for come on in, the air's lovely, amber for filling up or emptying out, red light for stop, if you come in here right now your lungs will explode. Happily, the indicator light was a steady, reassuring green. He hit the release mechanism.

Nothing. Frowning, Ken hit it again. Still nothing, no reassuring hiss of pressure that meant the door was going to play nice and open up. Ken ran his eyes over the edges, looking for anywhere that might indicate the cause of a jam of any kind. He didn't find anything. He triggered the release one more time, but the result was the same as before...zippo.

Fuck. He was going to have to blow the door.

He leaned his helmeted forehead against the smooth metal for a moment, resisting the urge to bang it repeatedly. This was far from a happy situation, since it meant that he was going to have to blow the outer door as well. The way these airlocks were designed, whether the outer door was in working order or not, it wouldn't open at all once he had destroyed the inner one. And the minute the outer door went, there was going to be a lot more water coming his way in a very big hurry.

Try as he might, though, he couldn't come up with an alternative plan...and time was running out.

Resigned, he reached into one of his belt pouches and produced a small charge, pressing it into place beside the locking mechanism. Then he set the timer and splashed slowly and painfully across the corridor to the intersection where he had just recently crashed. He put the corner in between him and the door and waited.

It dawned on him as the last few seconds ticked by that if the green light on the airlock was lying, he was probably about to die.

The explosion was sharp in the empty corridor, amplified by the metal around it. After a moment, when there was no roaring deluge of water, Ken stuck his head back around the corner. The airlock door hung drunkenly ajar on what was left of its hinges - the green light still lit, absurdly, although it was now flashing on and off like a glow worm with palsy. Using the wall for support, Ken made his slow way back across to the door, fished around in the water in front of it and came up with the cracked-off handle. He wedged it into the gap, braced himself, and began to lever the door the rest of the way open. The metal made an ominous creaking sound and he stepped aside just in time as the heavy slab broke off, splashing down hard into the water filled corridor.

Ken moved into the airlock, scanning it quickly. There were several handholds welded into the metal - the one on the wall above the outer airlock door looked like the best for his purposes. He withdrew another charge from his belt, adhering it to the door exactly as he had done with the inner one. He reached into a belt pouch and drew out a length of microthin cable that despite being the thickness of about three human hairs, was stronger than titanium. Holding one end, he braced himself, looked up at the handhold above the door and jumped.

He didn't make it on the first try, his injured leg screaming as he landed back in the water with a tremendous splash. It was rocky for a few moments there, but somehow he managed to stay on his feet. Gasping, fire in his lungs, he gathered himself and tried again. This time his fingertips brushed the handhold but he couldn't get enough of a hold to hang on. He crashed down again - this time his leg gave way and he went down on one knee in the water. Gray and shaking, spitting out water, he stayed there until he got his body back under control. Then he forced himself back upright, angrily, and tried again.

This time his right hand locked around the handhold.Pushing down the agony in his shoulder, he knotted the end of the cable around the handhold, tested it for strength, then let go and dropped back to the water.

He tried to land so that the water would help cushion him this time, and it wasn't so bad. But the worst part was still to come.

He looked at the outer door, then lifted his left arm and brought it down in front of his face. "Bird Go!"

He knew from past experience that detransmuting in his current physical state was going to hurt, but he wasn't prepared for how much. The blinding energy wrapped around him, freezing a scream in his throat as it tore his skeleton apart. A savage hand scooped out his insides, flung them aside and slammed his bones back together again hard enough to crack the joints. Then it was gone, its brilliant flare a burning afterimage on his retinas, and he doubled over, sobbing for breath, stomach heaving uncontrollably. Tears of pain ran down his cheeks, his body shaking so hard his teeth were rattling.

He hung on grimly, head down, eyes squeezed shut, and slowly the worst of it began to fade. As it did, he realized that the convulsive shivering wasn't just from his compromised physical state - with the birdstyle gone, he could now feel the numbing, penetrating cold of the water with a vengeance. His civvies, while much better than regular clothing, still had nowhere near the protective capabilities of his fighting uniform, and now hypothermia had become a real possibility. But there was nothing else to be done. If he didn't get his bracelet to where Jun and Ryu could pick up the signal, then it was all over for him and Joe.

For the first time, cold hard despair began to set in. He wasn't nearly home yet, and it was all he could do to stay on his feet. He was perilously close to the end of his endurance - he couldn't take much more of this.

_Didn't you ever get tired of saving the world?_

But it wasn't the world he was saving here, he reminded himself. It was something...some_one_... who meant far more to him than that. Some one who wasn't going to die this time, not if it took his last breath to prevent it.

He had to climb this mountain...there was no other choice.

His fingers fumbled as he unfastened his bracelet and tied it securely to the free end of the cable. Before he could think any more about it, he set the timer on the charge for ten minutes, turned around and pushed himself out of there as fast as he could go.

As he half-stumbled, half-waded through the deepening water, breathing in short gasps around the pain in his ribs, he fished out the locator remote. He stared at the slow, steady beep of the beacon...the only thing that would guide him back to Joe. He just hoped he could get there before the airlock door blew. If not...

_Dear God,_ he thought, _let them find us before we drown._

* * *

He couldn't find the hold where he'd left Joe. 

It didn't matter if he turned right, or left, or went straight ahead, all the corridors looked the fucking _same_ and the little bleeping dot on his remote unit never moved. It just sat there mocking him, never getting any closer no matter what he tried. His legs were so cold he could barely feel them anymore and he kept stumbling, reaching out to the wall to keep from going face down in the icy, fast-rising water. It was almost to his waist now and it took everything he had left to keep moving, like some broken wind-up toy that didn't know any better, even though he no longer had any idea where he was going. He stared at the remote, feeling his mind start to unravel as the white blinking dot turned into Joe's face, staring at him accusingly. Oh, God, had he broken it when he fell while chasing Katse? Was he now completely and utterly lost in this cavernous, metal maze? Had he killed them both?

_This is all your fault._ The thought stabbed him through the heart, mercilessly. _Just like the last time. You will never be forgiven for this, ever..._

His injured leg hit something hidden under the water and it went out from under him, throwing a hot stab of agony right the way through his body. Ken crashed forward, unable to save himself in time, hitting the water hard and going under. It was so cold it momentarily paralyzed him, freezing the gasp of shock in his throat. Panic galvanized him and he struck out for air again, coughing and choking as his head broke the surface.

And saw Berg Katse standing about thirty feet away, leaning against the wall of the corridor, looking right at him. He only wore one glove.

_I did see him. I'm not crazy! _

_Baka,_ he thought. He's dead. Of course you're crazy.

He rose up slowly out of the water, cold and injuries forgotten. They stared at each other, reacting to each other's presence like two wolves with hackles rising, ancient enemies in a duel that hadn't ended even in death. Maybe it _couldn't_ end. Ken wondered, briefly, if that was it...maybe he _had_ died in that explosion up there, and this terrible place was the purgatory his soul had been consigned to. And like Sisyphus and his rock, he was now doomed forever to try to rescue Joe from a death he couldn't prevent - and pursue Berg Katse through the corridors of hell in the helpless, endless pursuit of a victory that could never quite be his.

Then he felt the deep rumble beneath his feet, and he knew it was all over anyway. The water was coming.

Katse felt it too, Ken could tell by the way the Galactor leader shifted focus suddenly, looking past him. Then he swung around and waded with amazing speed in the other direction.

Son of a _bitch..._ Ken threw himself forward. The water made the going punishingly hard, if it weren't for his damaged ribs he would have made better headway swimming. But he didn't want a repeat of what had happened when he had tried to fly.

He blinked salt spray out of his eyes, cursing the fact that Katse's extra height gave him untold advantages in this race. Somewhere at the back of his mind the voice of reason was railing at him to stop, asking him why he was doing this at all, why he was locked in this pursuit when the game was already over.

He didn't know why. He only knew he couldn't help himself.

The sound of the oncoming tsunami was closer now - he could hear it roaring down the corridors behind him. He could see it in his mind's eye, smashing into the turns, shooting through the intersections, sweeping everything before its terrifying destructive force. Ahead of him, Katse stopped suddenly, half turning, listening. Then he vanished into the wall.

_Shimatta!_ Ken stopped dead, staring. What the fuck?

He ploughed forward again, legs nearly dead from the effort, pain stabbing at his lungs with every burning breath. Just a few more feet, just a few more...

There was an open hatchway in the wall where Katse had disappeared. So, no magic after all, this time. Ken stared at it, hesitating, knowing full well it could easily be a trap. Katse could be waiting for him on the other side, and he was injured and unarmed...

But he was also out of time. His head whipped round as he heard the water smack hard into the far wall of the last intersection behind him. He caught one brief look at the wall of angry green and white foam as it rebounded and rushed in his direction with the speed of a bullet train, then he was diving headfirst through the hatchway.

The water was just as deep on the other side and he came up spluttering and spitting. He grabbed the hatch cover with shaking hands and the heavy metal rang as he slammed it closed. He hit the seal beside the handle, praying, then almost sobbing with relief as he heard the hiss of the watertight locking mechanism. He leaned against it, dragging breath into his tortured lungs as the tidal wave thundered through the corridor beyond, shaking the whole mecha with its brutal passing.

"Ken?"

_Joe?_ Ken swung around in disbelief. It was impossible...it _couldn't_ be.

But it was. A quick glance around confirmed that he was back in the cavernous hold where he had left his gunner. Ken's heart leapt with fresh hope. "Joe! Joe, keep talking, tell me where you are!"

_"Baka,_ what the hell are you doing back here? Did you get lost?"

Ken stumbled to his second's side, almost crying with exhausted gratitude that he'd not only found him again, but that he was still alive. "Lost? Me? You're the one who slept through navigation classes."

Joe didn't look good. His skin was gray and waxy and his eyes burned with a light that didn't seem completely focused. "What went wrong? Didn't you find an escape pod...?"

"Two of them. But what good does that do when I can't get you out by myself? When the others get here, we'll..."

_"Baka,_ listen to me!" Joe growled. "This place could go any second. You've got to get out of here."

"Hey, doing my best," Ken retorted. "As usual you get to lounge around while I do all the work." He was about to tell Joe what he'd done with his bracelet, when it hit him.

He turned slowly. _"What_ did you say?"

"I said, you've got to get out of here."

"You've got to be kidding me." Ken gave a short, sharp laugh of disbelief. "You have got to be fucking _kidding_ me."

Joe coughed, closing his eyes for a moment. He wasn't attempting to hide the pain he was in any longer. "I'm not going to make it, you idiot. Can't you see that? You have to go, save yourself."

"No," Ken whispered. He wanted Joe to stop talking, stop saying the words he didn't want to hear. "No. I'm not leaving you, Joe. I fixed it. I got my bracelet to where Jun and Jinpei can pick up the signal. They'll find us, they will..."

Joe stared at him. "Don't be stupid, Ken. Don't you see how fast the water's rising? There's no time. You have to get out of here, get back to the team. They need you."

"They need you, too." _I need you._ Ken looked away quickly to hide the sudden burning in his eyes.

Joe was silent. Ken glanced over at him, saw the closed eyes, the quick gulps for air. He frowned. "Joe?"

"Give me...a minute..."

Ken stripped off his glove and reached over, pressing two fingers against the pulse in his gunner's neck. He bit his lip, frowning - it was much weaker and threadier than before. "Talk to me, Joe."

Silence. Joe's eyes stayed closed, his breathing slowing down.

"Dammit, Joe, stay with me." Ken's fingers dug into his second's shoulder, gouging painfully. "Joe!"

A deep shudder ran through the gunner's body. His eyes opened again, glazed and unfocused. "Go, Ken. Please. There's nothing you can do for me, can't you see that?"

"No!" Ken shocked himself with the raw violence of his shout. He lunged forward, slamming his fists down on the metal panel with a force than dented the finish. "You do not get to do this, Joe, do you hear me? _You do not get to do this again!"_

Joe stared at him, startled into wide-eyed silence by the Eagle's sudden fury.

"Do you have any idea what I went through after Cross Karakoram?" Ken raged, the veins in his neck standing out like cords. "Do you know what it did to me to have to leave you there? Did you even think for a second when you charged off with your blaze of glory deathwish that there might be consequences for the people you left behind?"

He swung away, back against the cold metal of the instrument panel. "Of course you didn't. You never thought about things like that. You didn't think about how it would feel for me to find you like that, to know just by looking at you that there was nothing we could do, it was all over... I couldn't stop thinking about it, couldn't sleep for seeing it. There was so much _blood..." _

"Ken..."

He held up his hand for silence. "I nearly went crazy, Joe. Hakase didn't tell you that...I asked him not to. I was so happy to have you back...it was a miracle. I didn't want to look it in the mouth too hard in case..." He broke off, struggling for control of his voice. "I had to try to keep it together for the sake of the others, but it was real close for a while there. I don't know what they would have done, after losing you like that, if I'd gone off the deep end too. They needed me to be there for them. Jinpei had nightmares... I bet he hasn't told you that, either. He kept seeing you out of the corner of his eye, watching him, following him, bleeding all over the ground like something out of a horror movie. Took him six months after we came home to sleep all the way through the night again."

He fell silent, struggling for the words.

"I'm sorry, Ken. If I had it to do over..."

"You'd do exactly the same thing." Ken didn't look at him. "It's who you are, Joe...it's who you'll always be. I accept that...it's difficult sometimes, but I accept that. It was always much easier for you. You had no idea what it was like to have the weight of the whole team on your shoulders, always having to be responsible, always having to think of all five of us instead of just yourself."

"And I didn't have to go around wearing white and living up to being born to save the world."

Ken turned then, eyes dark, his voice low and bitter. "But I didn't save the world, did I? _You_ did."

Joe stared at him. "Is that what this is all about? That I got my fool ass shot off instead of you? You think it should have been _you_ dying on that grass at Cross Karakoram? For God's sake, Ken, listen to yourself..."

"I'm the leader," Ken said woodenly. "It was my job..."

"Your _job?_ Your job to do what, sacrifice yourself for the cause? Jesus, Ken, you're Gatchaman! This team doesn't function without you. Far better I take the bullet so the team can survive. I'm replaceable."

"Not to us, you're not," Ken whispered. "Not to me."

Joe closed his eyes. "Look at the water, Ken. It's going to be all over soon. I've already done enough damage. Don't...don't make me do this in front of you."

The water was up to the middle of Ken's chest now. He grabbed for Joe's helmet. "Here...the breathing tube. That'll buy us some time."

Ignoring the hollow darkness in Joe's eyes, he settled the helmet back on to his second's head. He pressed the tube release.

Nothing. Ken pressed it again. Still nothing. _Oh, come on...don't do this to me..._ He removed the helmet again, fished around inside the panel where the tube should have been.

Shit. Oh, shit, shit, _shit._ Not only was the tube missing completely, but the reserve oxygen container was split completely down the middle. Ken stared at it, his hands trembling. What in the name of God was he going to do now...?

And then, slowly, a feeling of calm settled over him - the way it had done up there in that mecha when he had thought he and Jinpei were going to die. It all came together for him...the nightmare about falling, being pushed under the ocean...seeing Katse, and his father. This was it, the end of the road. They weren't getting out of here.

He looked up at his best friend again, a deep sadness in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Joe," he said. "We've been through so much together. I always thought..."

"Ken, no." Alarm flared in Joe's voice. "No, don't do this to me. You have to go, you have to save yourself. Ken, this is all wrong..."

"No." Ken smiled. "It's all _right,_ finally. Don't you see...I'm getting a second chance to put things right. The nightmares are over...my conscience is finally going to be clear."

"Ken, what the fuck are you talking about...?"

"We swore we'd die together, you remember that? All those years ago... _I, Ken Washio, swear on my blood and the blood of my family that if we die, we die together. We leave nobody behind, ever._ Remember that, Joe?"

"We were kids, Ken. What did we know about anything? You can't do this...you can't throw your life away for..."

"For you?" Ken laughed, shook his head. "Maybe there are other things more important than what they put on my tombstone. Maybe I'm just tired of saving the world, and losing the people who mean the most to me."

The ground shifted beneath them, a deep groan of stress echoing through the metal walls as the whole mecha tilted sideways. A wave of water smacked into them both, throwing Ken sideways down the instrument panel. Gasping with shock, he grabbed at the panel for support and hauled himself back up to Joe. "Joe! Joe, are you all right? _Joe!"_

Coughing, spitting out salt water, Joe managed to nod. The water was up to their necks now. The ground moved again, the mecha shifting, sliding further. Ken stared at Joe, seeing the façade cracking, the sudden panic underneath - realizing all at once how much his gunner didn't want to die. _Not like this,_ his eyes said. _Not like this, like a rat in a trap..._

A cracking sound above them then, so loud it was like an explosion. Pieces of metal, breaking off and splashing into the water out there in the dark. A gasp of pain from Joe, and the wave surged back, higher and harder than before.

He was underwater. "Joe!" Ken screamed. _"Joe!"_

A split second of blind, unreasoning panic, a hot wire wrapped around his chest. Then he went into action. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with air, and ducked down under the water. He grabbed Joe's shoulder, signaled what he was going to do. Then before Joe could fight him on it, he clamped his mouth over his gunner's and forced air into his lungs.

Then he went back up for more.

The mecha was filling up with water like a dinghy in a storm. The ground shook and shuddered, groaning as the great ship tore apart around them. Chunks of debris swept past, borne by the waves that crashed over and back every time the mecha moved underneath them. Ken ignored it all. He had one task to perform, nothing else mattered. Keep Joe breathing.

Up to the surface, drag in air, dive again. Breathe the air into Joe's mouth. Kick back to the surface as fast as he could go, drag in more air. Up and down, over and over. Can't stop, have to keep going. Have to keep him breathing. He'll die if you don't keep him breathing. More air. Have to get more air...

He was beginning to gray out now. The trips were getting longer, he wasn't breathing enough for himself, and the edges of his vision were starting to go. Up again, get more air, dive back to Joe. Don't stop. Can't stop. Getting harder and harder to reach the surface, harder and harder to fight the current and the pounding of the waves, harder and harder to get back down to Joe. Pain in his chest, growing and growing until it was so excruciating he thought his lungs would explode. But still he didn't stop. He couldn't stop. He _must_ not stop. There was only one thing left burning in his mind, all the rest of it unimportant, slipping away into oblivion. _Keep Joe alive._

Suddenly there was something grabbing at him, pulling him toward the surface. Hands... He fought them wildly, twisting out of their grasp. They came back at him again, gripping his arms, trying to drag him away. _No, you can't do this, you can't stop me now, you don't understand, he'll die if you stop me now..._

An arm with a grip like a vise clamped around him from behind, and something slapped over his face. He tore at it frantically, kicking out, fighting it with everything he had left. Then something hit him, hard.

His last conscious thought was of Joe, drifting away into the dark water until he could no longer see his face. Then he didn't remember anything else.


	3. Part III

**_Author's Note: I take a couple of small liberties with canon in this story. It's set during Gatchaman II, so Joe's a cyborg...but they still have their original vehicles and weapons, and a life outside of G-Town. Apologies to Tatsunoko... :-)_**

**_Standard disclaimer: I adore them, but sadly don't own them. Sigh. _**

**_

* * *

_**

THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

**_PART III_**

_"...we commit his body to the ground..."_

His eyes fixed on the grass in front of his black, polished shoes, Ken started as a familiar figure slid up next to him. "Damn, are you still here? I thought this'd be all over by now."

"Joe, shhh!" Ken hissed.

_"...earth to earth..."_

He felt rather than saw the shrug. He frowned, belatedly noticing that the legs beside him were clad in jeans and the shoes definitely weren't black or polished. "Where's your _suit?_ Hakase will have a fit..."

_"...ashes to ashes, dust to dust..."_

"Ken, are you ever going to quit lecturing me?"

Ken glanced quickly at the others, relieved that nobody appeared to have heard them. Jun was quietly weeping, Jinpei and Ryu either side of her, red-eyed but silent. Nambu stood on the far side of them, staring down at the grave, normally impassive face etched in pain.

_"The Lord bless him and keep him, the Lord make his face to shine upon him..."_

He swallowed his anger with an effort. "Why weren't you at the church?"

"I shot a priest, Ken. I don't belong in a place like that any more."

Ken stared at him. "What is going _on_ with you?"

There was amusement in the deep, rumbling voice. "You don't know where you are, do you?"

"Of course I..." Off Joe's level stare, Ken frowned, suddenly uncertain. He looked around, at the grave...and then he saw it, the smooth polished granite of the memorial marker, the red-roped enclosure, the grassy slope below that led to the edge of the cliff. The ocean beyond it, blue and endless.

_"...and be gracious unto him and give him peace..."_

Oh, God. Oh, dear God. _Joe..._

He swung back quickly, heart lurching in his chest. But the Condor was gone, leaving only his footprints...rimmed in blood in the grass.

* * *

_"I think he's coming round..." _

The words didn't make sense at first – he knew what the sounds were, but his mind couldn't attach a meaning. He floated just beneath the surface of consciousness, seeing the figures above him as if he were lying on the bottom of a pool and they were gathered around the edge, gazing down at him. Their images rippled and distorted like watercolors, and he closed his eyes again as the movement made his stomach churn.

"Ken? Can you hear me? Ken?"

_Jun. _Ken opened his eyes in shock, his vision a little clearer now. _It's her, it's really her..._ He moved his head a fraction toward her, tried to speak.

Relief washed over her face. "Shhh, take it easy. You've had a bad time."

His whole body hurt. He tried to move again, bit back a groan of pain. "Where..."

"G-Town," Ryu's voice told him. "You're back home."

_G-Town's not my home._ The thought rippled through his mind but was gone before he could catch hold of it. He tried to make his dry lips and throat cooperate again.

"Do you want some water?" Jun asked.

_Water..._ His eyes went wide as it all came rushing back with the force of the tidal wave that had almost drowned him. _Drowned..._ "Joe!" he gasped, trying to sit up, body screaming in agony at the attempt. "Joe..."

Jun gripped his hand. "Ken, listen to me. Joe's going to be all right. We got you both in time."

Ken's eyes locked on hers. "Where..."

"He's nearby, don't worry."

Ken's fingers closed on hers like a vise. "Show me." He needed, desperately, to see for himself, to quell the panic that was rising inside him like a choking flood.

Jun looked up. Ken followed her glance, saw Nambu there at the foot of the bed, hands on Jinpei's shoulders...probably as much to restrain his enthusiasm as anything. Ken was happy to see that although his hands were bandaged and there were dark smudges under his eyes, the youngest member of the team seemed none the worse for wear after surviving his own trials on board the mecha.

Nambu gave Jun a brief nod and moved to the left. Ken turned his head slowly and painfully to watch as the professor opened the curtains that separated the room into two. Tears of relief burned at the back of his eyes as he saw Joe in the other bed, hooked up to a maze of tubes and electrodes. The rhythm of his heart monitor sounded nice and steady, music to Ken's ears.

He couldn't help an involuntary shudder at the memory of how close it had been this time. How very close to a repeat of Cross Karakoram, even if this time they would have had a body to bury.

"There," Jun said. "I told you. Everything's going to be okay."

He nodded, sinking back gratefully against the pillows. Just that brief effort had exhausted him – he could feel the sweat plastering the thin cotton of the hospital gown to the back of his neck.

"That's better," she said. "You need your rest." She leaned over him, smiling reassuringly, smoothing the damp tendrils of hair out of his eyes. "Now give me the override code for G-Town's core systems control."

Ken stared at her. _"What?" _

Something was flashing at the side of his vision. Jun's eyes turned hard and dark, her face morphing before his eyes, her voice becoming shrill and harsh. He wanted to yell but he was frozen to the spot, unable to move a muscle. His surroundings shimmered and broke, collapsing around him, turning to water...

_Water..._

* * *

The first thing he recognized was the smell. 

There was nothing else he'd ever known that smelled like that...like industrial strength antiseptic mouthwash crossed with the thing you can't find that's rotting in the back of the refrigerator. _Regen__ fluid. _

He forced his eyes open.

"Ah, Gatchaman. Nice of you to rejoin us."

_Gel Sadra! _The jolt of adrenaline lent strength to his efforts. Blinking past the stabbing pain of the light, he focused enough to see the familiar, purple-masked figure smiling down at him. That voice...it was unmistakeably the same one that Jun's voice had changed into, in his..._dream? _Was that what it had been?

Was _this_ a dream, too?

His stomach lurched as he realized he had no way to tell anymore.

Gradually more details of his situation bled through to his pain-fogged consciousness. He was still in his civvies, slumped on the floor against the wall of a large chamber. Was he still on the mecha? _Couldn't_ be, it would have split open like a tin can by now... But where...? He stared dully at the blood and vomit that mingled on the floor beside and in front of him, both presumably his own.

Gel Sadra was seated in a heavy metal chair in front of him, her long legs crossed and tucked sideways in a bizarrely demure pose that seemed at odds with the costume she wore. Behind her stood a half circle of Galactor soldiers, two deep. They weren't taking any chances...he heard the percussive double click of a dozen rounds being thrown into rifle chambers as he tried to drag himself more upright against the metal wall.

Gel Sadra raised a hand to forestall any of her guard with an itchy trigger finger. "Fools, he's not going anywhere."

She leaned toward Ken. There was something long, thin and metallic in her other hand, but he couldn't quite make out what it was. "Now where were we? Ah, yes, you were going to tell us all about how to override G-Town's core systems control."

Ken stared up at her, wondering how long he'd been here, how long this questioning had been going on. Wondering why he couldn't remember. The pain was a thick haze at the edges of his vision, and breathing took almost all the strength he had left. He could hear the faint whistling bubble of fluid in his lungs. "You're wasting...your time... You must know...I'll never..."

She made an impatient sound and swung up the thin metal wand. Burning agony slashed through his body, a pain so unspeakably hideous that it robbed him of breath and thought. Every muscle and nerve snapped rigid, his back arched so tight his spine was going to snap at any second. He couldn't even scream.

When she let him go, the relief was so total that he collapsed like a shattered marionette, unable to do anything but sob for breath. His body felt like it should be smoking, the aftermath of the current sparking and twitching across his nerves.

"You're not in a position to "never" anything, Gatchaman," Gel Sadra snapped.

"Gel Sadra-sama...if I might have a word..."

Ken made his head move enough to focus blurrily on the man who had stepped up beside the Galactor leader's chair. All he could reliably make out was that he was dressed in a white coat.

"Make it quick," Gel Sadra demanded. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Yes, Gel Sadra-sama. It's the Condor. He's regaining consciousness."

_Joe..._ Ken's heart sang with hope in his exhausted, battered body. Joe wasn't dead! There was still a chance...

Gel Sadra rose from her chair and turned, waving impatiently for the circle of Galactor soldiers to clear her eyeline. Ken's breath caught as his clearing vision registered what she was looking at. A regen tank. That was the source of the smell he had recognized when he had first awakened.

He hated regen. Quite apart from the odor, he hated the claustrophobic feeling of full suspension in the thick, viscous fluid, breathing entirely through a specialized oxygen mask sealed tightly to his face with tape that hurt like hell when they peeled it off again. He hated the way it made his skin itch for days afterwards, a side-effect of the accelerated cell growth the process produced. And almost more than anything, he hated the color. Bright, cheerful, Pepto Bismol pink.

Of course, Nambu and the other doctors just ignored such complaints, talking about the process with an almost religious fervor. It was easy to understand why – without the regen fluid and the rest of the ISO's related arsenal of accelerated-healing drugs and procedures, the Kagaku Ninja Tai would have been out of business long ago. Regen could take a badly injured Science Ninja and put him back in the game in less than a week, a timetable most medicine that called itself modern could only dream of achieving. And staying in the game was the only way they had even a hope of winning this war.

And now here he was...wherever here _was_...staring at a regen tank in the hands of Galactor. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised that they had the same technology...for all he knew, Nambu had acquired it from the enemy in the first place. It was that kind of ongoing game they were playing, like a technological tug of war, each team continuously pulling each other backward and forward over the line.

The Condor was suspended in the tank in a harness attached overhead to an articulated metal arm, his chest dotted with wireless electrodes, breathing mask obscuring the lower part of his face. He wasn't moving.

"He doesn't look like he's waking up to me," Gel Sadra muttered ominously.

But then she saw it, and so did Ken. One of Joe's hands moved.

"Ah," she said. "Our last guest is about to join the party. I tried to have a nice talk with him earlier, but he wasn't quite well enough. You'll have fun watching me hurt him, won't you, Gatchaman?"

She turned around and looked down her nose at him, laughing. Hatred boiled over in Ken's veins. _You touch him, bitch, and it'll be the last thing you ever do..._

And then, in the tank, the Condor's eyes snapped open. Ken could see the whites around them, stark with terror. It took Ken a moment – then it hit him. _Shit, he doesn't know where he is, and the last thing he remembers is drowning..._

Joe's body convulsed, chest heaving, flailing uselessly in the harness. "Joe," Ken gasped, trying to get enough breath into his tortured lungs to shout. "Joe!"

Gel Sadra wheeled back toward the tank, staring at the Condor's furiously twisting form in the tank, the regen liquid boiling around him. "Pull him out before he breaks something, you idiots," she snapped to the technicians milling around in front of the permaplex.

White coats ran back and forth, shouting. The lift motor began to whine. Ken's eyes swung back to the tank...just in time to see Joe start tearing at his breathing mask.

_No, no, no, no..._

Desperation fuelled Ken's efforts to move, to force his body to work. "Joe, Joe, _stop!_" But it was useless, the Condor couldn't see him, let alone hear him.

Above him, the whine of the lift motor stopped. One of the techs started cursing and jabbing at the controls.

In ghastly slow motion, Ken watched the tape rip away from Joe's face.

There was a roaring in his ears, drowning out all other sound as everything narrowed down to one tiny, excruciating pinpoint of focus. He was on his feet without knowing how he got there, his whole being pure purpose, moving without thought. He launched himself forward, grabbing the metal arms of Gel Sadra's chair with both hands and hauling it off the floor. He heard the great whoosh of air as he swung it around his head in a high arc, then it tore itself out of his grip and he watched it sail through the air toward the tank.

The dull roar of gunfire sounded as if it was coming from a long way away. Then his body couldn't support him anymore and he smacked back down on his knees, no breath in his lungs, the agony so bad it felt like his chest was crushed. He could do nothing to hold back the blackness that rushed toward the center of his vision.

_Joe..._

The chair crashed into the glass. For an endless moment nothing happened...then cracks appeared, splintering out from the point of impact like a bright, jagged spider web. There was a sound like a grenade exploding, striking hard and sharp at his ears. Then the tank burst outwards, a tidal wave of liquid and razor sharp shards of glass coming straight at him.

He never felt it hit.

* * *

_"Give him to me. I can't believe you did such a thing to your own son! He could have drowned!" _

"Oh, don't fuss, woman. He's perfectly fine. Children are tough – trust me, I know."

"Baka! He's just a small child!"

"He's a Washio. And he'll have to do better than that if he's going to survive what's coming."

"What do you mean, 'what's coming?'"

"Never mind. Here, give me that blanket. Ken? Ken, you listen to your father. You're going to be all right, understand? Everything's going to be all right."

Everything's going to be all right...

Everything...

* * *

There was sky above him. 

Pale blue, with high, scudding clouds. He was flat on his back in the open air – a steady, cold breeze blew across his face, filled with the scents of flowers and grasses and other organic things. Nothing like the stale barrenness of recycled atmosphere, with its vague leftover odors that you couldn't really identify.

And he was in birdstyle.

After a moment, Ken moved cautiously, turning his head to one side to take in his surroundings. Grass brushed his cheek below the curve of his visor – tough, scrubby, high altitude grass. He was in some sort of rocky clearing in the mountains, strewn with patches of snow and bordered by high dark crags. He could hear the wind moaning and sighing through the gaps and fissures between them.

He frowned. Scattered through the clearing were tall dark shapes that looked almost like...

He rolled the other way and came up hard against looming gray stone. His eyes traveled up it, knowing what he was going to see.

_No, no, please, anywhere but here,_ anywhere...

There was something spread out under him, beside the stone, something old and crusted that stained the stunted grass a muddy rusted brown. It took him a moment to realize what it was, what it _had _to be ...

This was the place. The exact place where...

The jaws of a vise clamped down on his heart, threatening to crack it open. He hurled himself away, hyperventilating, adrenaline spiking so hard in his veins that he was gasping for breath. He managed to get up on one knee before the pain caught up with him with a vengeance, punishing him for moving far too quickly for his injured body. The world did a sickening revolve, his vision draining away, the blood roaring in his ears. He grabbed blindly for the support of another fallen statue, fighting the black, sparking fog in front of his eyes and the dry retching of his stomach.

The monoliths of Cross Karakoram stood unmoved, mocking him with their silence.

Ken hung on grimly until he could see again. Slowly he raised his head, looked around the clearing in front of him. The broken ground, the fallen statues. This wasn't real. It _couldn't_ be.

Any more real than the voice that came from behind a monolith about twelve feet away.

"You should be in a hospital, Gatchaman."

Ken's head snapped up. Katse stepped out from behind the stone column. He laughed at Ken's instant pose of battle readiness. "Look at you...Nambu Hakase's little puppet. Half dead, should just lie down and give up – but you see the color purple and you slobber at the mouth like one of Pavlov's dogs."

Ken stared at him, not trusting his voice yet...trying not to show how hard he was gripping the rough stone just to keep himself upright.

"Of course, we're both puppets, really." Katse sighed, sitting down heavily on a boulder in front of the monolith. "Look at us. We're ridiculous. We both run around hiding our faces from the world, and neither one of us ever had a choice."

"Speak for yourself," Ken said. "I had a choice."

"Oh, you did, did you? Tell me about it, Gatchaman." Katse leaned forward, arms on his upper thighs. "Come on, don't be shy! Tell your Uncle Berg all about the time you came home at fourteen and confessed to Papa Nambu you weren't going to be a Science Ninja after all – you'd had an epiphany while dissecting frogs in science class and you wanted to be a surgeon instead! Or how about when you were sixteen, and you told him to lock up the dojo and throw away the key, because you'd met the girl of your dreams and you were moving to the beach to raise six kids and open a surf shop! Or..."

"Shut up, Katse." Ken spat through gritted teeth. The pain had receded enough now that he could use his grasp of the fallen statue to haul himself to his feet. Angling his body slightly away, concealing the movement against the stone, he slid his hand slowly back to his belt. His fingers closed around the head of the birdrang.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up..." Katse's head bobbed from side to side as he repeated the words in a sing song mantra, trailing away discordantly at the end. "Oh, that makes me homesick...Sosai used to say that to me all the time." His voice turned mournful. "Nobody ever has any compassion for me. They never think about how hard I had it, bossed around all the time by that intergalactic imbecile..."

Ken gave a snort of disbelief. "How hard _you_ had it?"

"You have no idea." The tone of the hard, quiet words chilled Ken to the bone. He was taken aback momentarily, stood there just looking. Then anger rippled through him and he shook it off.

"I felt sorry for you once. Then you killed my father...and Joe. You don't deserve my pity, let alone my compassion."

Katse chuckled. "Fine speeches as usual, Gatchaman. And anyway, I didn't kill the Condor, although I have to admit I gave it the old college try. Do you know how many bullets he took? Gah. Hell even spat him back out. Indigestible, I fancy."

"Looks like it spat _you _back out, too." Ken gauged the distance between himself and the former Galactor leader. Could he get a clean throw, did he have the strength? Could his ribs take it? He was only going to get one chance.

"Circus freaks aren't welcome anywhere, Gatchaman," Katse said, shaking his head as if admonishing Ken for not knowing such a basic truth. "Not even hell."

"You're not a circus freak, you're a monster," Ken ground out. "My only regret is that I didn't kill you when I had the chance."

"Kill me?" Katse laughed, the sound like glass bells breaking. "Sosai would never have let you kill me. Sosai loved me."

Ken snorted. "Are we talking about the same Sosai who took off for outer space right after he told you his Black Hole plan was about to destroy the earth? The same earth he promised you would rule for him?"

Katse's shoulders sagged. "He was my God, you know," he said wistfully. "I would have done anything for him." His voice slid into a savage hiss. "Bastard."

He looked back up at Ken, sing-song again. Ken had to stifle a cold shiver at the continual, unnerving changes of mood. "Galactor is like a hydra, Gatchaman. Cut off one head and the many that remain will live on to fight again, stronger than ever. Mark my words, one day your kind will be gone from this earth and we will prevail."

"No." Ken's jaw set in a hard, grim line. "Mark _my_ words, Katse. We beat you once, we'll beat you again. And we'll keep on doing it, as many times as it takes."

Katse giggled. "Speeches again." He stood up. "Oh, go on, give me the one about the white shadow that slips in unseen. For old times' sake. I used to love that one!"

"You're insane," Ken said, shaking his head.

"I'm dead," Katse pointed out tartly. "I can be anything I want."

_He knows he's dead. _Ken's mind raced. _Does that mean I'm dead, too? Because if I am... _

Then he couldn't be hurt anymore. None of this was real...not Katse, not Cross Karakoram...not even his injuries.

The crippling pain was gone. Blown away, evaporated, like water on the breeze. Ken straightened up, taking a deep, deep breath for the first time in what felt like forever. "Thank you," he said, his mouth curving up in a wolfish grin.

Katse stared at him, body language suddenly oozing uneasiness. _"Nani?"_

Ken's arm moved so fast the birdrang was flying from his fingers almost before he'd had the thought to throw it. Katse shrieked, body twisting to avoid the wicked silver blades. The weapon whipped past him, so close that Ken saw sudden daylight through the gash it tore open in his purple cloak. And then Katse was gone, racing full tilt across the broken ground.

Ken yelled in frustration, snatching the birdrang out of the air as it completed its return arc. _So close, so_ close...

He launched himself forward, giving chase.

Katse ran with astonishing speed, dodging monoliths and hurdling boulders without the slightest pause or hesitation. At first it took everything Ken had to keep up with him on the unfamiliar terrain, but after a few moments he hit his stride and began to close the gap. It felt unbelievably good to be back – body pumping like the superbly conditioned machine it was, legs pistoning him forward, wings flying straight back from his shoulders in the wind of his passing. _Not this time. You're not getting away from me this time. _

Ahead of him, Katse disappeared.

The thought barely had time to register before Ken was hurtling through the air. He yelled out in surprise, tumbling into a forward somersault, coming out right side up as his wings instinctively snapped out to slow his fall. Down he went, down into the darkness, swooping after the receding echo of Katse's manic laughter.

An eerie flickering glow washed across his eyes as he emerged into open space. He had only a second to register the hard, blue-gray angles that swept past him before the ground was on him. He rolled to break the impact, the birdrang back in his hand by the time he was upright again. He held the defensive crouch, sweeping his surroundings.

The vise clamped back down around his heart. He was back in the ruined control room of the Cross Karakoram base.

No mistaking this place, not even for a second. He'd been back here a hundred times since the end of the first war, in his dreams. Even without the photographs in the piles of reports he'd ploughed through during the exhaustive investigation between the wars, when the ISO and UN teams had been taking apart this place rivet by rivet to figure out what had really happened here, he could never have forgotten the tall, darkly-curving walls, their smooth lines marred with massive jagged cracks, or the line of instrument banks all around their base, all of them quiet and dark now. His eyes fell on the oversized globe he had used to bludgeon Katse in their last battle, jammed up against a ruined panel, half its once-perfect sphere caved in like a broken skull. And beside it, the vast archway into what had once been Sosai X's communication chamber...the place where Berg Katse had communed with his alien god. The far end of it, where the viewscreen had been, was nothing but a pile of rubble, now – the rock torn open like paper by that god's abrupt and violent departure. The shifting red glow that licked across the steel walls was only reflection from the deep lava pit beyond the shattered wall, Ken knew. Even through the birdstyle, it was warm down here.

Purple flashed past his vision. Ken shot to his feet and raced after it, through another high metal arch into the chamber that had held the missile loading machinery for the Black Hole Plan. The machinery that Joe had jammed, through sheer luck, with the feather shuriken with which he had intended to take Katse's life. He had missed Katse...but saved the entire world.

The timer was still intact on the shattered display panel. And it still read 0002.

Ken cornered Katse at the far end of the chamber, sweating, trying to shake off the memories. "Why are we here?" he demanded. "Why?"

"Why are you always blaming me for everything?" Katse blabbered, staring around frantically for a way past him. "It's not my fault that everyone around you has a bigger death wish than you do!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Ken could see the hole that had been blown in the wall when Sosai X's last bomb had detonated in the wrong place, destroying the machinery that had been dropping it and its fellow missiles to the earth's core. He shuddered as he remembered trying to climb inside to stop it with his bare hands, a suicide mission that had been halted only by Jun's hysterical pleas.

Katse's words took a moment to register on him. "What the hell does that mean?" he demanded.

"Your father wants to go out in a blaze of glory, it's my fault. The Condor wants to beat you to saving the world, it's my fault. All you do is whine and blame me. As if I had anything to do with any of it."

All Ken could see was the red mist that descended in front of his eyes. He roared Katse's name and charged.

His first blow launched Katse halfway across the room, landing him awkwardly over a chunk of broken rock. Ken was on him at once, dragging him up, swinging him over his head and dashing his body back to the concrete floor. He dimly heard Katse screaming, a high, thin sound in the emptiness of the control chamber. But he didn't even think about stopping...the rage was burning cleanly now, like a hard, diamond-bright flame inside him. And it felt good. So very, very good.

Somehow, Katse summoned the strength to defend himself. He caught Ken's arm as it came chopping down, surprising the Eagle enough that he was flying through the air before he knew what was happening. Ken arced down into a handstand, springing out of it to land on his feet.

Katse was running. Ken was right behind him.

Katse skidded in a hard right turn into Sosai X's chamber, shrieking pleas to his god. Ken's mind flooded with the memories of their last fight, the way Katse had screamed the same things then. "Sosai can't save you now!" he snarled. "You're mine, Katse. Like you should have been two years ago. _Mine._"

Katse skidded to a halt at the edge of the lava pit, swinging around, babbling and frothing at the mouth. "You'll never take me alive, Gatchaman! Never!"

There was a brief, frozen pause. Then Ken did one of the things that made him Gatchaman. He sprang, launching his body through the air a split second _before_ Katse made the conscious decision to swing around toward toward the pit.

The distance was only a few feet, but it seemed to take forever. Each heartbeat was separate and distinct in his ears, each intake of breath – Katse's one hundred eighty degree spin made up of a thousand separate freeze frames in time. The Galactor leader completed his turn and began to jump, but Ken's gloved hands were right there, right where he wanted them...locking like steel cuffs around Katse's purple-booted ankles. Katse screamed in rage and fury and fear, his leaping arc foiled, smashing down face first against the inside face of the flame-licked chasm. Ken landed hard behind him, flat out, the breath knocked out of him but holding on like a grim, avenging angel.

Hanging halfway over the boiling lava, Katse kicked out frantically. "Let me go, Gatchaman! Let me go!"

"Not a chance in hell," Ken panted. He began to move backwards, inch by inexorable inch, dragging Katse's writhing, struggling body back up over the precipice. As soon as the Galactor leader was clear of the pit, Ken sprang up and landed astride his chest, arm scything down in a sharp blow to the head meant to momentarily stun his opponent. Then he ripped off Katse's mask.

"Sosai," Katse moaned. His lacerated, bleeding skin was flushed from the heat of the pit, long blond hair soaked with sweat. Frothy, blood-flecked drool dribbled from his mouth. "Why have you forsaken me?"

Ken reached down slowly, placing his hands either side of the Galactor leader's face. He waited until Katse was looking right up at him, hardening his heart to the madness in his eyes.

"This is for my father," he growled, and broke his neck.

* * *

The fish were bigger than he remembered. 

Ken watched one of them, a fat, shiny koi more pale gold than orange, swim lazily to the surface and snatch a bug that seemed to be just sitting on the surface waiting to be someone's dinner. The wide, man-made rock pool was exactly the way it had always looked, though – large boulders, some the size of a man, set at its entrance to slow and filter the speed of the incoming stream; hanging grasses and water plants softening the rugged gray slate that surrounded its cool, dark depths. He remembered coming here many times when he was younger and they had still been living and training at the mansion, just to sit and listen to the sound of the water and clear his mind of noise.

"How do you feel, Ken?"

"Hatsumi-sensei?" Ken turned in surprise to see Hatsumi Shingoro smiling up at him. Hatsumi was a sturdy, square-built man who smiled easily and often, a habit which was borne out by the rich creases in the weathered skin of his face. Even being in his company a few minutes it was easy to see why his Ninjutsu warrior name was Kofukuryu – Happy Dragon. It was a character trait that was both attractive and deceptive...Ken knew only too well that this man, the 36th and last surviving Grand Master of the Togakure Ryu of the Ninja tradition, was an extremely hard and relentless taskmaster. There had been many times during their time together as student and teacher when he had seriously thought he was never going to make it through the training in anything remotely resembling one piece.

He had made it, though...and it had only taken one skirmish with the enemy once the war began to make him very, very grateful. Grateful for the tireless teacher and mentor who would never, ever accept any less from him than everything he had to give.

"You sound like Dr. Sugiyama," Ken said, his mouth twisting as he thought about the Kagaku Ninja Tai's chief psychologist. "He always asks me that."

"And how would you answer him today?"

Ken turned away, staring back into the depths of the koi pond. "You're trying to tell me I shouldn't have done it."

"Only you can know that, Ken," Hatsumi replied evenly. "The answer is in your own heart. It is not for anyone else to say."

Familiar sounds reached his ears, faintly, and Ken glanced up across the pool. A shock rippled through him as he recognized himself and Joe on the wide green lawn behind the mansion, going through the moves of _Sanshin no kata_ in perfect unison. They were about thirteen, he guessed. That had been the year that Hatsumi-sensei had taken over their training.

He couldn't help a smile...he'd forgotten how lanky Joe had looked when he'd gone through that growth spurt – his "awkward stage," as Nambu's housekeeper, Takahashi-san, had called it. His smile faded as he looked at his own younger self. Had he always had such a serious look on his face?

"I did not know your father," Hatsumi said. "But I hear he was a man of much pride, a man who believed in bending the world to his will."

Ken nodded, eyes still on the Ken and Joe of the past as they moved through the katas with smooth precision. When Hatsumi didn't immediately continue, he glanced sideways at him. "But what does that..."

"Remember our lessons, Ken. There is no independent action anywhere in this universe. Everything is connected, everything intertwined. It is all cause and effect."

"Ku, Fu, Ka, Sui, Chi," Ken murmured automatically. _Void, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth. _

"Yes," Hatsumi acknowledged. "But in order to defeat our enemy, we must know him...and we must also know ourselves. We must learn to translate what lies between the lines."

The thirteen year old Ken and Joe had finished their _katas_ and turned, bowing to each other formally. Joe said something as they straightened up, his body language shifting instantly from disciplined martial artist to obnoxious teenager. Ken felt a sharp pang as he watched his younger self leap at the retreating Condor, sending them both down in a heap of flailing arms and legs. He remembered that moment. Joe had made a snide remark about his interest in the pretty young daughter of one of Nambu's staff, declaring that the Eagle was wasting his time, because if anyone had a chance at her, it was _him. _

Following his gaze, Hatsumi said, "What is the first step to attaining the _kanjin-kaname_ of Ninjutsu, Ken?"

"To rid oneself of desire." Ken couldn't help the smile. "Do you remember Joe's face when you first told us that?"

Hatsumi returned the smile, his eyes dancing with mischief. "Ah, yes. He did not understand what I meant at first, did he?"

"No." The thirteen year old Ken and Joe were sitting up now, their fight over, friends again. Joe pointed, suddenly...and the adult Ken almost laughed as he spotted a small, white furry animal loping across the grass. Takahashi-san's pet rabbit, Tsukiko, an inveterate escape artist, was on the loose again.

_White rabbits..._ He turned back to Hatsumi-sensei, the light beginning to dawn. "You told us that the desires of the personality were the most difficult to overcome," he said slowly. "Chasing after illusions...demanding that things be what they aren't."

Hatsumi nodded, his expression pleased. "If you were flying, Ken, and you saw that you were approaching a storm, what would you do?"

"Fly around it, or above it if I could."

"Exactly. You must always remember that a Ninja lives in the winds of _shinobi_. When the favorable wind is blowing, your body will seem to float above the ground, your progress easy and honorable. When the direction of the wind changes, you must use the techniques of _doton_ to hide by the earth and wait in stillness for the spirit of _shinobi_ to come for you again."

Ken watched his thirteen year old self as he scooped up Tsukiko, tucked the errant rabbit under his arm, and walked away toward the mansion with the thirteen year old Joe. His chest tightened, and he blinked against the sudden burning in his eyes. _I'm not done, _he thought fiercely. _I want another chance. _

As if he had spoken out loud, Hatsumi answered him. "It was not your path to sacrifice yourself for the dead, Ken. Your path is to lead the living."

Somewhere around the edges of his awareness Ken noticed that the sunlight was growing brighter, the details of the landscape beginning to wash out around him like an overexposed photograph. He stared at Hatsumi, his heart leaping suddenly, wildly. "The _living? "_

His teacher smiled broadly now, nodding. He indicated their swiftly fading surroundings. "You have seen nothing here in these gardens that is not a reflection of those still living. Did you not notice?"

"Yes, of course..." Ken whispered. The light was so strong now that he couldn't see anything beyond Hatsumi-sensei, as if they were both suspended in a pool of brilliance. He made himself say the words, shaking with the force of the hope that rose inside him. "I'm alive? I can go home?"

"I will ask you again. How do you feel?"

Ken took a deep breath. He felt as though his heart were expanding, filling his chest. "I feel good," he said, wonderingly. "I feel _good." _

Pride shone in his teacher's eyes. "You have faced your devils and defeated them, Owashi no Ken. It is time."

Ken heard himself laugh out loud. Then the light shot through their bodies, consuming them both.

* * *

He had been floating forever, enfolded in a timeless embrace of warmth and light. He dimly remembered that he had once belonged somewhere else, but he couldn't quite recall where. In any case, it didn't matter. It was good here. Peaceful. 

A steady beeping sound began to penetrate his consciousness – faint at first, a ripple disturbing the calm surface of a pond. He tried to ignore it, but it grew slowly louder and louder until he felt himself becoming angry. _Go away. Leave me alone. Can't you see I'm..._

Without warning, the veil of light ripped away, and he realized that his eyes were open. Something flat and white came slowly into focus in front of him, stretching away to either side. He knew he should know what it was, but... And what was that strange dark circle...?

Memory returned all in a rush. It was an inset light fixture. He was lying on his back looking up at a ceiling.

_He was home. _

With enormous difficulty, he moved his head to the side, blinking away the lingering fuzziness as he took in the familiar sight of a G-Town hospital room. He shook off the shivery feeling of déjà vu as it sprang up, recognizing with silent relief that there was no welcoming committee this time, no figment of his imagination designed to deceive him. The room was shrouded in quiet...the only other thing he could hear besides the soft beeping of the heart monitor was something that sounded like...breathing...?

He turned his head a little more to the right. Joe was sprawled in the chair near the window, fast asleep, his long legs hooked over the broad padded arm.

"Joe..." His voice came out as a croaking whisper.

The Condor's eyes shot open. A dozen emotions crossed his face all at once – it was like watching one of those high speed films of the sky, Ken thought incongruously, whipping through a hundred different weather patterns in a matter of minutes. Only he'd never seen a sky look surprised, or happy, or relieved.

Joe wasn't moving as fast as he usually did. By the time he'd gotten to his feet, he'd had time to revert to his normal obnoxious self. "Well, shit, Ken. It's about time."

Ken managed to make his unnaturally stiff face form a smile. "Asshole."

Joe chuckled, but he couldn't quite hide the concern in his eyes. Ken saw it and frowned. "How long...?"

"You've been out since they retrieved us. Nine days."

_Nine days._ Ken tried to process the information, but his brain was still full of cobwebs and fog.

"You cost me money," Joe informed him, folding his arms. "I had four days."

Ken managed a grin. Talking was a little easier now, although his jaw was still strangely stiff and his tongue felt too big for his mouth. "Who won?"

"Jinpei," Joe said, with disgust. "Squirt had eight. Can you believe that?"

Ken tried to laugh, but all that came out was a dry coughing sound.

"I'm getting Nambu," Joe said quickly. "Stay awake."

Ken did his best, but he must have drifted anyway, because the next thing he knew was Jun's voice. He opened his eyes again. "Don't cry," he managed to croak, unable to put any strength behind his voice. "Gonna be...okay."

She smiled, green eyes brimming with tears. "I'm happy, you idiot," she said. "You really scared us this time."

The rest of the team was all there now, as well...Jinpei, Ryu, and Nambu. Ken frowned, his memory beginning to return now. "Joe," he said. "How..." He couldn't find the words, managing to thump his fist weakly against his sternum instead.

Joe's eyebrows went up in very obvious surprise. He shot a look at the others that Ken couldn't read, then pulled up his shirt. The long scar looked nasty, but it was mending fast - without a doubt a combination of his accelerated cyborg healing time and regen therapy. "How did you...?"

Ken closed his eyes, suddenly a little dizzy with relief. "I thought... I almost lost you. Couldn't get you out, not by myself – that panel was too big... I kept diving, giving you air...I thought if I could just keep you breathing until they found us...but then Gel Sadra..."

The protracted silence above him made him look up again. He caught Jun's glance at Joe, who was now frowning deeply, then at Ryu. "Ken..." Jun began, "what are you talking about...?"

"My bracelet," Ken said suddenly, memory taking him off on another tangent. "I had to get it...outside the mech...so you could pick up the signal... Did you find it?"

The smooth skin between her eyebrows puckered. "Find it? Ken, I don't..."

Ken smiled faintly. "It's still down there somewhere, then. Never mind...at least it did the job."

"Ken, you're talking nonsense," Ryu said. "Of course we found your bracelet. It was on your wrist when we picked you up." He pulled open the bedside drawer and took out the bracelet, holding it up for Ken to see. "Where else would it be?"

Ken stared at it. On his wrist? How was that _possible? _"No...it couldn't have been..."

"We had to search for you for quite a while," Jun said. "There was a lot of wreckage in the water, the pieces were spread out for miles. We knew you were down there somewhere, but it was nearly an hour before we found you – Ryu spotted your wings, reflecting the sun. You were floating on what was left of the command center. You were hurt pretty bad but Joe was worse...he had a piece of an instrument panel right through his chest." Her voice dropped. "It was really close for a minute there, but we pulled him through."

"Ah, wasn't that bad," Joe rumbled. Jun rolled her eyes at him.

_Floating..._ "On the water?" Ken repeated. "_On_ the water? But that's impossible...we were a thousand feet down..."

This time Jun and Ryu both looked at Nambu. "Ken, you need to rest," the professor said. "We'll come back later and you can tell us more about what happened."

"No," Ken said, struggling to sit up. He was much too weak to make it further than his elbows. "I've rested enough... Listen to me, Hakase, please...I'm not delirious... We were in the mecha, under the water, and Joe was..."

"Later, Ken," Nambu said firmly. "Your first priority is getting well."

"Give me my chart."

"Ken..."

"Give it to me." Teeth gritted from the effort of holding his body up, Ken held out one hand. Nambu stared at him for a long moment, but ever since the death of Red Impulse, Ken had insisted that there be no more secrets, and the Eagle wasn't about to let him bend that rule now. Nambu unclipped the chart from the end of the bed and brought it to Ken.

Ken read the information quickly. To his dismay, everything Ryu and Jun had said checked out. Defeated, he handed the chart back wordlessly and sagged back against the pillows in exhaustion. He stared at his bracelet, lying on the bedside table where Ryu had left it. Had it _all_ been a dream?

According to the chart, he'd coded during retrieval, and twice more here at G-Town – once actually during a regen session. The third time had been only the day before, and the notes said it had taken almost two and a half minutes to revive him, and had involved several hits of the paddles and an injection straight to the heart. He'd been in the regen tanks five times in all since his return. Maybe some of that explained a few of the things he'd felt, experienced, down there. Maybe. His mind still didn't want to accept that _none_ of it had actually happened.

"Don't let it worry you, Ken," Nambu said. "You were in a coma for nine days. Things are bound to be a little scrambled at first."

Ken nodded unhappily. He had no more strength left to argue.

"Give it time," Nambu said. "You know the drill."

He began to shepherd the others out of the room. They left reluctantly, promising to return later. Ken watched them go through half-closed eyes, the fog beginning to cloud his brain again.

Joe lingered for a moment at the door for a moment, the puzzled expression still in his eyes. He looked as if he wanted to ask a dozen questions, but his mouth quirked instead. "You've really gotta get better at keeping your mouth shut, Ken. We're a thousand feet underwater, I'm drowning and you're giving me mouth-to-mouth? Sugiyama's gonna have a field day."

It was too much effort to roll his eyes, so Ken settled for a glare. Joe chuckled. "_Baka,_ don't look so pissed off. You'll get another chance to save my ass, I can pretty much guarantee it."

_I saved you from drowning, twice. I saw my father. I killed Katse. _"Save your own ass," Ken muttered.

"Think of it as job security," Joe grinned.

Ken wanted to throw a pillow at him but he couldn't move. "Next time I'm gonna make it nine_teen_ days," he said, the words a real effort now. "Just to get away from you."

"Never gonna happen," Joe promised him, his tone suddenly softer. "We go, we're going together, remember? I'm holding you to that, flyboy."

Ken closed his eyes to hide the tears that welled up suddenly, unbidden. He tried to answer, but he couldn't, his mouth wouldn't move anymore. He was slipping away down a long, long slope, and the sound of the door closing was the last thing he heard before sleep claimed him.

_You have faced your devils and defeated them, Owashi no Ken. _

This time, he wouldn't dream.

_**The End**_


End file.
